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In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, different characters deal with the guilt they feel in different ways. Lady Macbeth’s guilt pushes her into madness, and while Macbeth’s guilt does the same, it also pushes him to commit further atrocities. However, Macduff uses his guilt over his family’s death to avenge them. The difference in the way in which they deal with their guilt catalyze many deaths, including those of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Guilt and accountability therefore are key elements of Macbeth. Immediately after he kills Duncan, Macbeth feels guilt, and this guilt directly pushes him into madness and further atrocities. He states that the knocking should “wake Duncan . . .- I would thou couldst,” and thus wishes that he had …show more content…
After she helps Macbeth kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth’s guilt manifests in sleeplessness and a fear of darkness. She begins to sleepwalk and insists that she “has light by her continually,” as if the light will cast away the darkness around her metaphorically as well as literally (V.i.22-23). Every death in Macbeth occurs at night or in the shadows; Lady Macbeth’s fear of darkness reveals that she fears that her sins will catch up to her and that someone will attempt to kill her as well. Like her husband, Lady Macbeth’s paranoia manifests as a result of her guilt. In addition, sleeplessness is a classic manifestation of guilt. Lady Macbeth is also continuously washing her hands in an attempt to wash away her guilt. In a final manifestation of her guilt, Lady Macbeth “by self and violent hands took her life” because she ultimately is unable to cope with her sins (V.viii.69-71). Although Lady Macbeth’s guilt does not result in nearly as many deaths as that of her husband, it does lead to her own death and reveals key characteristics of guilt, particularly …show more content…
Macduff’s guilt stems from the murder of his wife and children, whom he thinks “not for their own demerits but for [his own] fell slaughter on their souls” (IV.iii.226-227). However, rather than allowing his grief and guilt to drive him mad, Macduff uses them as “the whetstone of [his] sword. Let grief convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it” (IV.iii.228-229). With Malcom’s encouragement, Macduff turns his guilt into a determination to kill “this fiend of Scotland” (IV.iii.233). His guilt therefore pushes Macduff to avenge his family’s deaths by killing Macbeth, which in turn benefits Scotland as a
After Macbeth's deed was done, he would of succumb to his guilt if it weren't for lady Macbeth. His paranoia started to get the best of him. Macbeth thinks that someone has heard him commit the crime, " I have done the deed, didst thou not hear a noise? " (Macbeth, II, II, 15) The good Lady tells Macbeth she heard nothing, she is comforting him by reassuring him that no one heard a thing, " I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak? " (Macbeth, II, II, 16 - 17) Macbeth feels guilt and pity for what he has done to Duncan, he looks down on himself. [looking at his hands] " This is a sorry sight. " (Macbeth, II, II, 22). Lady Macbeth comes through and shows Macbeth comfort and strength before he loses it and does something irrational. When Macbeth returns to his chamber after killing Duncan and Lady Macbeth learns that he didn't carry out the end of the plan, the reader sees a moment of panic in Lady Macbeth. She quickly regains her composure, though, and decides that she must complete the plan herself. She says to Macbeth, "Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead are but ...
Lady Macbeth is of a finer and more delicate nature. Having fixed her eye upon the end - the attainment for her husband of Duncan's crown - she accepts the inevitable means; she nerves herself for the terrible night's work by artificial stimulants; yet she cannot strike the sleeping king who resembles her father. Having sustained her weaker husband, her own strength gives way; and in sleep, when her will cannot control her thoughts, she is piteously afflicted by the memory of one stain of blood upon her little hand. (792)
As Lady Macbeth becomes consumed by fear and guilt, she is slowly losing her sanity. This is a result of her not being able to handle what she has done to Duncan. In one scene, Lady Macbeth is trying to wash out what she sees as being blood on her hands, even though she is sleepwalking, though the doctor and woman in the room dare not blame her for anything, for fear of being accused and executed for treason. At the start, Lady Macbeth was pushing the fearful Macbeth to kill Duncan. Now, late in the play, their roles have reversed, and it is Lady Macbeth who is fearful, not her husband.
Everyone deals with guilt at least one time throughout their life, and several authors use guilt to help build up suspense in their story. Guilt in Macbeth not only affects his mental state of mind, but it also destroys him physically, along with a few other characters such as Lady Macbeth. The characters are affected by guilt so much, that it actually leads to their death essentially, just because they were not able to handle the consequences for the events that occurred. Despite being destroyed by guilt, they were still forced to carry on with their lives and they did have to try to hide it, even though Macbeth was not doing so well with that. His hallucinations were giving him up and eventually everyone knew the he had murdered Duncan so he could become the next king.
One of Shakespeare’s favored tragedies, Macbeth, displays the progress of guilt and how it affects some of the characters throughout the play. Two characters who become deeply consumed with guilt are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Although they both deal with guilt in different ways, the audience sees how profoundly it affects them through not only words but actions. When reading the play, the audience is able to recognize Macbeth’s guilt early on, but it 's not until later that the effects of Lady Macbeth’s guilt become evident. The guilt that the two feel is easily sought out as sincere and damaging.
Both “Macbeth and “An Inspector Calls” by William Shakespeare and J.B. Priestley both explores the impact of guilt on their characters. For Shakespeare whose novel was set in Medieval Times and written in 1606 Jacobean Times, he writes the play for King James 1 of Scotland in order to gain patronage from King. However, Priestley (a socialist) whose novel was 1912 and written in 1945 (the end of WW2), he focuses on a capitalist family in Brumley just to promote the view of socialist to the audience in 1945. Despite the differences of the play, the overall impact of guilt are the same in both play but used in different ways. In this essay I will be focusing on a character in Shakespeare’s play called Lady Macbeth as her character clearly showed guilt at the end of play due to her sleepwalking (unnatural- madness) and dying as she cannot handle her guilt. This could therefore, be compared to Sheila in “An Inspector Calls” because her character has clear similarities to Lady Macbeth as she does not feel any guilt at the beginning but changes to realise her social responsibility and felt guilty at the end of the play. However, some of the characters in “An Inspector calls” does not show any guilt at all for example, Mr and Mrs Birling.
This was an oral presentation, in which I prosecuted Macbeth. I received a grade of A-, however was told that it was my actual presentation rather than my essay that stopped me getting a higher grade :)
The Guilt of Macbeth There is guilt throughout the play that motivates Macbeth. This guilt drives Lady Macbeth to insanity, which in the end causes the death of Lady Macbeth. Throughout the play, Macbeth's deeds do no good for his consciousness and his inheritance of the throne. There have been several occasions that Macbeth had experienced his guilt of the crimes he committed and the feeling of the fact that he was to be overthrown. After Macbeth kills King Duncan, he feels guilty after committing this crime.
Guilt plays a strong role in motivating Macbeth, and causes Lady Macbeth to be driven over the edge of sanity - to her death. Throughout the story, there are many different types of guilty feelings that play a role in Macbeth’s fatal decisions and bring Lady Macbeth to commit suicide. Although there are many instances that show the power guilt has played on the main characters, there are three examples that show this the best. One is, just after the murder of the great King, Duncan. Guilt overcomes Macbeth where he can no longer think straight. A second example is soon after that, where all the guilt Macbeth feels at first, changes into hate after he decides that Banquo must be killed as well. The last example is just about at the end of the play, when we see Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, and then later committing suicide; this all because of the burden of her guilt. All of these examples build the proof that in this play, guilt plays a very large role in the characters’ lives.
A part from the play in which the Lady Macbeth and Macbeth both get guilt feelings is on the death of King Duncan. Even before the death of King Duncan Lady Macbeth was rejected to kill Duncan by herself as she gave reasons that when King Duncan is Sleeping he looks a bit like her father and she doesn’t want to kill him. Macbeth seems deeply shocked that he could not utter the name of God when as a fallen man, a vile killer, he had 'most need of blessing'. His tormented conscience unveils itself in the form of delirious ravings. The sort of guilt behaviour could be compared to our today’s society as humans in today’s society do have guilt feelings after the cruel. The behaviour touches the person who has been cruel and has guilt feelings about it. The feeling of the guilt behaviour makes them feel sad and try very hard to change the situation back to normal so they don’t have that guilty feeling about the cruel things that they have done. The guilt behaviour in today’s society can happen in our day-to-day life with our family. One of the quote for the book related to guilt behaviour is “O, Full of scorpions is my mind” Act3 scene 2 Line 30. This quote shows the horror of Macbeth’s mental
Shakespeare’s Macbeth showcases the effects that guilt can have on a person. One can see both outcomes through Macbeth as he slowly degrades from the person he had been to the monster he became as a result of his sin and lack of confession as well as through Lady Macbeth as the guilt takes over her life, filling her with depression and eventually leading her to her end in the form of suicide.
His guilt of his plans to kill Duncan is evident in his soliloquy. Macbeth sees a dagger and says, “I see thee still; and on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, which was not so before.” In Macbeth’s soliloquy, Macbeth imagines a dagger, but the dagger turns bloody and points toward Duncan’s door, which illustrates Macbeth’s guilt. Also, right after Macbeth kills Duncan, he hears someone saying, “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,” but in reality, it was a figment of his imagination due to his guilt of killing Duncan. Also, at Macbeth’s banquet, Macbeth is the only one who can see Banquo’s ghost, which is a result of Macbeth's guilt of Banquo’s death. Throughout the play, it is evident that the deaths Macbeth causes make an impact on him, which leads to Macbeth becoming quite
Guilt shows the progress of character change of Macbeth and other characters throughout "Macbeth". Literary elements establish the outcomes of guilt throughout ‘Macbeth’ and slowly come together to show a clicking change within the characters. Guilt starts out as something unfathomable and terrible for Macbeth and soon dissipates into pure evil, while for others such
Macbeth presents many themes for analysis such as guilt and conscience. This theme was played out quite a few times throughout macbeth’s main characters, macbeth and lady macbeth. I think this theme had the most impact on the story line. It also affects the topics of Dramatic irony: The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect, and also character development of the two main characters. Guilt is an emotional experience that happens when a person thinks that they have disrupted their morals. Conscience is what distinguishes your morals, or right from wrong. it is often described as that which leads to feelings of guilt when a person does things that go against
You can control guilt or guilt will drive you into madness. In the novel, Macbeth, guilt has taken over two of the main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but each one responds to it in a different way. Their similarities and differences are quite obvious and both are driven to their actions by this feeling. It will eventually cause both of them a breakdown, affecting their behaviors and resulting them into going through a psychological incapacity.