Birds
A MOTIF ANALYSIS BY REBEKAH DICKSON
“Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, Which gives
the stern’st good-night. He is about it…” (Act 2 Scene 2 Lines 2-4)
Considering her murderous actions,
Lady Macbeth, in this quote sets and eerie
mood through diction and imagery.
Knowing from the previous scene that
Macbeth is on his way to murder King
Duncan, readers are also allowed into Lady
Macbeth’s point-of-view as she anxiously
awaits her husband after the deed. While
waiting, Lady Macbeth hears an owl
shrieking in the night, calling him the
“fatal bellman” (or sign of Duncan’s
execution) and alluding to the audience
that the deed is done.
The use, here, of the owl as a
malevolent symbol of death is one that is
carried on throughout the play as one of
the many motifs Shakespeare uses to add
structure to his work.
“’Tis unnatural, Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last A falcon, tow’ring in her
pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.” (Act 2 Scene 4 Lines 10-13)
In this scene, the nobles have just
found Duncan, murdered, and have
placed the blame on his framed-servants
who were in his chambers with him. The
speaker, an old man we are told is Ross’s
father, tells Ross off three unnatural
events that Shakespeare writes as
symbols and foreshadowing tools. The
first of which, is the story of how a
falcon, a majestic and powerful predator
of the day, was killed by a mousing owla nocturnal (and thus dark) bird that is
unknown and not feared by anything
but small rodents.
This story is used to symbolize
the abnormality of Macbeth, a
predacious, yet dark, man not nearly as
well respected as the king, killing the
majestic, powerful, revered Duncan and
assuming his “pride of place.”
“Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the
crow Makes wing to th’ rooky wood. Good things of day being to droop and drowse, Whiles
night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.” (Act 3 Scene 2 Lines 49-53)
Referring to the three men he
has just sent to murder his former
friend, Banquo, Macbeth uses the
motifs of birds and darkness and light
in his conversation with his wife to
create a dark, maniacal mood for the
closing of this scene. Using crows, a
scavenging, dark, disliked species of
bird that was often a harbinger of evil
and death, Macbeth tells of the “good
things of day” fading away, darkness
taking over, and “night’s black agents”
(crows) hunting. Shakespeare’s
association of Macbeth with menacing
species of birds further develops
Macbeth’s evolution from protagonist
to villain.
“Wisdom! To leave his wife, to leave his babies, His mansion, and his titles, in a place From whence
himself does fly? He loves us not: He wants the unnatural touch: The poor wren, The most diminutive of
birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.” (Act 4 Scene 2 Lines 6-11)
Returning again to his connection
between Macbeth and the considered-evil
owl, Shakespeare again foreshadows with
the use of analogy in Lady Macduff’s quote.
Here, while calling her husband a coward
and questioning his motives for fleeing
Scotland, Lady Macduff foretells her own
death. Drawing a comparison between the
Macduffs and wrens, which are small,
defenseless birds, Shakespeare ingeniously
adds a dramatic gravity to their murder by
the malicious owl, Macbeth, while still
allowing the scene to naturally build its
action and gravity. In the murder scene
itself, none but Macduff’s son are seen
being killed and his final words are for his
mother to run, dramatically. This detail
could not be added if Shakespeare had
been forced to construct the setting and
tone on his own. Through the use of this
foreshadowing, the audience knows that
Macduff’s wife and children are innocent
and have been left vulnerable to Macbeth’s
insatiable wrath and immoral measures.
“He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty
chickens and their dam? At one fell swoop?” (Act 4 Scene 3 Lines 216-219)
Here, Macduff has just
discovered the death of his
entire family at the hands of
Macbeth. Comparing Macbeth
to a hell-kite, the evilest of all
birds used by Shakespeare,
and his children to chickens,
innocent, common birds,
Macduff displays the gravity of
his grief and denial and
Macbeth’s complete
emergence as the villain.
Macduff will later take this
grief and use it as his drive to
kill Macbeth and avenge his
family.