Everything in Macbeth is somehow compared to light and dark, an action, a person, and feelings, include a few. Whenever the death of a character is being plotted, by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, they call upon the darkness, the night, to aid in their miss doings. "Come, thick night, and pale thee in the funnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wounds it makes." In this scene Lady Macbeth is calling on the night to conceal her immoral actions. Here we see darkness being used as something to cloak wicked exploits. In scene one, act four, Macbeth says "Let not the light see my black and deep desires", here he is referring to his desire to kill Duncan and his hopes that Duncan will not look past Macbeth's facade of courtesy. Darkness represents the heinous and destructive side of human nature while lightness describes the good of human nature, or the countenance of moral correctness.
In Macbeth light is often used to describe innocence. In Macbeth many of the characters often wish of lightness of darkness to protect them from the consequences of their actions. "Come, selling night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, and with thy bloody and invisible hand cancel and tear to pieces that great bond which keeps me pale" (3.2.50). In this scene Macbeth wishes for the night to arrive and cast out the good of day, so that the night may cast out Banquo. Macbeth wants night to come sooner so that he can take off his mask of "paleness" or blamelessness. In Macbeth the themes of light and dark go hand in hand with death which is a prevalent concept in the play.
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