Which Word Is Used Most Often In "Macbeth"�?

The word "blood" appears forty-two times if you include variants such as "bloody", closely followed by "fear." If you add related lexical items such as "gashes," "butcher," "gore" and so on, though, blood clearly predominates. The sense of constant bloodshed is unrelenting, starting in Act I, scene ii when a blood-soaked messenger arrives to tell King Duncan of Macbeth's bravery in the recent battle (to dispose of one enemy, he "unseam'd him form the nave to the chops"). The theme continues as Macbeth and his wife kill the king and struggle to wash the blood from their hands, and ever afterwards both are tormented by terrible dreams. Lady Macbeth even has regular sleepwalking episodes in which she imagines that she is endlessly washing her hands, which remain bloodstained. Throughout the play there are scenes of violence as Macbeth's enemies are slaughtered, until finally he himself is beheaded and the final blood metaphor is used to describe him as "this dead butcher."