Symbols

The Dagger The dagger that Macbeth sees floating before him, with its handle toward his hand, in Scene 1 of Act II, and which later gives way to the real daggers of the crime, those of Duncan's chamberlains. The play moves from a dagger that may not exist to daggers... Blood on the Hands Duncan's blood that stays on the hands of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and that no water carries away. It is the physical mark of the crime, and the play moves it from a wound on the husband, on the night of the murder, to the stain on the wife, on the night of... Sleep The innocent sleep that Macbeth says he murdered together with Duncan. The play treats it as the first thing the crime takes from the one who commits it, and it brings it back in four forms: the sleep refused before the crime, the sleep that does not come... Birnam Wood Birnam Wood, the promise the third apparition makes to Macbeth: he will never be defeated unless Great Birnam Wood marches against him up to the hill of Dunsinane. The play treats it as an impossibility that ends up coming true to the letter, through the...