Macbeth, one of William Shakespeare's shortest and most renowned plays, was composed somewhere between 1603 and 1606. The play has been considered one of his darkest ones, if not the darkest of all. The witchcraft, murders, treasons and machinations portrayed in the story create abundant action to maintain the audience tied to the exciting plot. The gloomy and grotesque descriptions in this work, and especially the death imagery portrayed, are extremely poignant.

This kind of dark imagery is present from the beginning of Macbeth, and can be found throughout the entire play. The opening scene portraying three repugnant witches plotting the downfall of Macbeth in the middle of a storm makes this clear. Indeed, the witches appear in the play significantly and are always surrounded by an aura of malice. Shakespeare uses death imagery to convey the witches' dreadful machination by portraying them crafting poisons from repulsive animal parts, by having them create bloody apparitions, or simply by exhibiting their brutal and nauseating selves.

The most effective way in which the play's sinister imagery in portrayed is through the apparitions. These ghostly spirits appear in all shapes and forms to challenge reality and thus create suspense. Lady Macbeth's bloody hands from the assassination of the king that will not get cleaned with any amount of water, serve to remind the audience of her and her husband's crime. The appearance of Banquo's ghost literally brings the death to life, and is a vivid representation of Macbeth's betrayal of his best friend.

In addition, Shakespeare uses death imagery to convey the destructive nature of war. The play both starts and ends with violent battles. The most moving images, however, probably come from the last scenes, in which Macduff enters fights Macbeth to death, and after killing him, cuts his head and raises it to join the other soldiers in frantic cheers of victory. It is interesting to note that Macduff's grotesque act of violence was a mere response to the previous assassination of his children and wife. The image of the heartless soldiers murdering the innocent children was indeed more poignant than this one.

Yet this dark imagery conveying the horrible times Scotland is going through is not merely represented through descriptions of apparitions, ghosts and murders, but also through the environment that surrounds the sinister actions and creatures. For example, whenever there is a horrible event about to take place, extreme weather conditions appear foreshadowing the event. This happens in the scene were Macbeth first meets the witches and on the night of King Duncan's assassination. In this specific night, even the animals behave oddly, for they start eating each other alive.

In conclusion, death and ruin seems be written everywhere in this play. The weather, the animals, the people and of course the supernatural is depicted darkly and deathlike. Shakespeare's effective usage of death imagery in Macbeth greatly supports its dark themes of violence, corruption, and greed.