guilt

• MACBETH:

  will all great neptunes ocean wash this blood (a2 s2)
• out damned spot 


  Spot of blood, blood is a repeated motif of guilt in the play, symbolising guilt. At this point in the play, Lady Macbeth's mental state is declining because of her guilt. - Imperative 'out' shows the downfall of her mental state as she orders a spot of blood. - 'damned' connotes sin and implies that she is accursed to hell because of her sin, Shakespeare presents all her efforts to rid the 'damned spot' as a futile endeavour. - Ironic and painful reversal of her earlier claim 'a little water clears us of this deed'
• Lady Macbeth: ''All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand' Act 5 Scene 1'
• Perfumes


  Connote femininity, becoming more mentally unstable, losing agency, reverting to her feminine qualities, contrasting her pursuit for masculinity and for the witches to 'unsex' her at the start of the play
• Hyperbole


  Emphasises how not even all the perfumes of Arabia will not remove the smell of the blood when the perfume would but it emphasises how serious of a crime regicide was in the Jacobean period, and how the guilt will always torment her
• It's not the smell she can't 'sweeten', but her guilt