Stern St Good Night In Macbeth

(1.6.4-10) “The temple-haunting martlet… Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle. / Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed / The air is delicate.”
At this time, Dunsinane is safe. Though Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are indeed scheming to kill the king, their wickedness has not permeated through the castle, partly because at this point Macbeth has not committed to killing Duncan and is therefore still redeemable.
(2.2.4) “It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman / Which gives the stern’st good-night.”
The “stern’st good-night” could be interpreted as a way of alluding to death, as death is often characterized as an eternal slumber. The fact that the owl was the one who administered this stern’st good-night is significant …show more content…
Macbeth spent the entire night after he murdered Duncan filled with paranoia, and was not able to be consoled by Lady Macbeth.
(2.4.13-14) “A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, / Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.”
According to the Great Metaphysical Chain of Being, the falcon is the supreme bird who rules over all others, with the owl ranking a few notches below it. The death of the falcon at the owl’s hand illustrates that the natural order of things has been disrupted. This situation also bears resemblance to what has just occurred at Dunsinane; King Duncan has just been murdered by Macbeth, a man who was beneath him in terms of power. This parallel reinforces the idea that the owl is meant to be a symbol for Macbeth.
(3.2.50-51) “Light thickens, and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood.”
This mention of the crow is significant because it is here that we can begin to see the parallels between the crow and Macduff. Just a few scenes prior in act 2 scene 4, Macduff informs Ross that he is returning to his home in Fife. The parallel here between Macduff and the crow comes from the fact that a rooky wood is where corvids prefer to …show more content…
Assuming that this again refers to the owl, this is more cementation that the owl stands for Macbeth, as he makes this comment in full knowledge that Banquo will soon be murdered indirectly by his hand.
Here’s a good time to mention that in the natural world, crows and owls instinctively hate each other and will fight on sight.
(3.4.124-125) “Augurs and understood relations have, By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks, brought forth The secret’st man of blood.”
Maggot-pies and choughs and rooks are all species of crow.
They revealed “The secret’st man of blood” which is a murderer
Macduff is the one who figures out Macbeth is a murderer
(4.2.9-11) “for the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in the nest, against the owl.”
L. Macduff knows that Macbeth is coming, and is upset that her husband has left. She calls him lesser than a wren for not staying to protect her and their children from Macbeth.
The entire family keeps comparing themselves to birds in this scene
There are no other significant bird mentions after that point, and narratively, there probably doesn’t need to be. Shakespeare already foreshadowed to the reader that Macduff, the crow, would be the one to reveal Macbeth as Duncan’s

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