'A New Gorgon': Visual Effects in Macbeth

The faculty of sight has special significance in Macbeth . Not only do 'sightless substances' assume visible shape and bloody spectacles appal us, but we are made as aware of what is veiled from our eyes (for instance, the murder of Duncan) as of what is seen. There are degrees of visibility, and the language of the play, with its powerful appeal to the visual imagination, mediates between the seen and the unseen. The inner world of Macbeth's visionary awareness, expressed through his soliloquies, and the off-stage world reported by the play's many messengers, contain images that extend the play's concern with sight beyond what is visible on the stage. This verbal imagery and the recurrent references to the eye itself as a vulnerable agent, prone to deception and confronted by what it hardly dare look upon, add the power of suggestion to the play's visual impact .