6/8

Imagery and figurative language can often work in conjunction to illustrate themes in literature. The author will insert figurative language and allegories into the work and use imagery to describe the characteristics of whatever the subject of the allegory or metaphor is. For instance Macbeth is constantly referring to disease. Hamlet refers to disease so often, that it becomes a leitmotif. Disease is a metaphor for the corrosion of Hamlet's sanity as the play progresses. Every time that disease is described in Hamlet, the same description can be attributed to the decay of Hamlet's sanity.