Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Mental illness in macbeth
Problems faced by macbeth
Analysis of Macbeth by Shakespeare
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Mental illness in macbeth
Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder in Lady Macbeth In the play, The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, he introduces Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is an ambitious nobleman who becomes thane of Cawdor, thane of Glamis, and King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth is his wife who plays a major role in Macbeth becoming king. In doing so, her mental state rapidly declines and it is evident that Lady Macbeth is mentally ill. With support of Lady Macbeth’s destructive thoughts and actions, she could properly be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. Lady Macbeth shows prominent characteristics of borderline personality disorder throughout the play. According to Mayo Clinic, borderline personality disorder is defined as, “a mental health disorder that impacts the way you think and feel about yourself and others, causing problems functioning in everyday life” (“Borderline Personality Disorder”). Symptoms of this disorder include “rapid changes in self-identity and image, extreme emotions and impulsiveness, stress related paranoia, loss of contact with reality, and intense anger.” (Chmielewski). In …show more content…
Given this information, Lady Macbeth shows many characteristics of bipolar disorder. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth shows signs of having manic episodes. An example is her involvement in the murders; it seems like a good plan for Macbeth to become king, but the major consequences are overlooked. She has abnormal moods, racing thoughts, increased goal-directed activity, and excessive involvement in activities that may have a painful outcome. Lady Macbeth is proud her husband is king; nonetheless, she is also depressed due to the fact that so many people had to be killed. For Lady Macbeth, the ultimate consequence of her actions was death, being she took her own life. (5.5.16). Therefore, it is clear that Lady Macbeth suffered from bipolar
Extreme circumstances such as the ones presented in Macbeth are highly probable causes for both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s development of schizophrenia. Their behavior, although seeming quite erratic and irrational, is quite common among patients with this disorder. The term “schizophrenic,” however, was not even brought to the public until 1911, by a Swiss psychologist, Eugen Bleuler, almost three decades after Shakespeare’s Macbeth was introduced to England. Citizens during the sixteen hundreds would have just thought Macbeth and his wife were insane and should be locked away. With today’s psychoanalytic sciences, though, it can be most likely predicted that schizophrenia was present in Macbeth.
“...Seize upon Fife, give to th' edge o' th' sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line” (4.1.170-174). In act four of Macbeth, Macbeth demands Macduff’s entire castle be murdered in full resolve and utter insanity. He becomes the very personality he disdains from the start of Macbeth. However, it cannot be simply chalked up to a shift in heart but, instead, a diagnosable disorder that contributes to his full-fledged lunacy. It is easy to assume that Macbeth was only influenced into his craziness; but upon further inspection Macbeth had, without a doubt, developed Bipolar Disorder. He quickly changed from a virtuous and proud warrior to a liar and thief of the crown once Lady Macbeth had pressured him into killing Duncan. From thereon out, Macbeth quickly made his descent into madness; a combination of manic episodes, delusions,
William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is intense and horrifying, with Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, planning to kill the king so that Macbeth can take his position. Lady Macbeth is the master mind behind all of this. She is in his ear telling him what to do and how to do it. Under all of this pressure from his wife, Macbeth starts to go insane. In the play, Macbeth shows symptoms of bipolar disorder due to his lack of sleep, agitation, and activeness.
Although Macbeth may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, his suffering does not constitute insanity. Macbeth was in a healthy mindset when he embarked on his murderous spree and treacherous rule of Scotland. His actions and reactions prior to and throughout his tenure as King of Scotland were normal considering the circumstances. The following evidence will prove that Macbeth was indeed sane.
During the play, Lady Macbeth starts off as the “cheerleader chick” for Macbeth, egging him on, and supporting him through their twisted ambitions and conflicts. “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it”(1.5.5-8) Macbeth has ambitions and dreams, and with the help of the witches (The Supernatural), ideas start to form. In conjunction with Lady Macbeth’s idea’s for her husband’s eminence, create a deadly psychotic force that causes the initial (and most of the other) murders. This quote from the second half of Act 1, shows how Lady Macbeth is more than insane enough for the both of them, as Macbeth can’t muster up the will, and stomach, to do what they both plan to do,
An insane person is one that demonstrates foolish acts because of their poor mental state. In the beginning of Macbeth, Macbeth is characterized as a brave soldier. His bravery on the battlefield earned him the titles of Thane of Cawdor and Glamis. The play leads the reader to believe that Macbeth is sane, but when he receives prophesy from the witches that he will be king, an insane character emerges from within. Macbeth demonstrates these characteristics when he claims to see a floating dagger and an illusionary ghost and also becomes obsessed with the idea of killing others, and not being completely human. Macbeth displays the characteristics of an insane character because of his foolish acts and poor mental state when he visualizes the floating dagger, speaks to a ghost, becomes obsessed with killing others and with the idea of being invincible.
Lady Macbeth is really quite insane“Out damned spot! Out, I say!...Yet who would have thought the old man have had so much blood in him?”(Scene 1, act 5)But she isn’t the only one with an unstable mental state .In Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, Macbeth’s mental state quickly deteriorates. We can trace Macbeth's mental deterioration by his actions leading up to his death at the end of scene V, such as when he saw the floating dagger, or when Macbeth sends the three murders to murder his best friend Banquo,and when he started to talk to somebody that nobody else could see at the banquet.
As Macbeth becomes less dependent on his wife, she loses more control. She loses control of her husband, but mostly, of herself, proving her vacillating truth. Lady Macbeth’s character gradually disintegrates through a false portrayal of unyielding strength, an unsteady control of her husband and shifting involvement with supernatural powers.Throughout the duration of play Lady Macbeth’s truly decrepit and vulnerable nature is revealed. Lady Macbeth has been the iron fist and authority icon for Macbeth, yet deep down, she never carried such traits to begin with. This duality in Lady Macbeth’s character plays a huge role in planting the seed for Macbeth’s downfall and eventual demise.
Lady Macbeth suffered from the effects of bipolar and schizophrenia. First lady Macbeth showed bipolar disorder by showing the symptoms of inflated self-esteem. Lady Macbeth believed she should be queen. Lady Macbeth was already a noble wife. She wants the Queens crown so bad, she would do anything to make sure she got that crown.
There were several aspects of Shakespeare’s novel ‘Macbeth’ that led to the downfall of Lady Macbeth. The mentality of Lady Macbeth in the play changes dramatically from the wife a Noble General, to an evil aggressive murderer (brought upon by the witches predictions), and finally a woman who had de-graded to such an extent that she took her own life.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both show signs of what would today be diagnosed as symptoms of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is defined as "a psychotic disorder characterized by loss of contact with the environment, by noticeable deterioration in the level of functioning in everyday life, and by disintegration of personality expressed as disorder of feeling, thought, and conduct." There are three major symptoms of the disorder; not being able to distinguish the difference between fantasy and reality, incoherent conversations, and withdrawal physically and emotionally. The most common and most well known symptom of schizophrenia is when people cannot distinguish between what is real and what is not. Schizophrenics often suffer from delusions and hallucinations. A delusion is a false belief or idea and a hallucination is seeing, hearing, or sensing something that is not really there. Some people diagnosed with the illness may speak with disjointed conversations. They often utter vague statements that are strung together in an incoherent way. Lastly, some schizophrenics withdraw emotionally, for example, their outlook on life is deadened and they show little or no warmth, and also physically, such as their movements become jerky and robot-like.
In the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is overly whelmed by the letter she receives about Macbeth. This pushes her to the extreme and causes her to react outrageously. " Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here…make thick my blood…take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers…come thick night." (I;v;40-50) All these images of darkness and horror reveal the true character of Lady Macbeth; she feels the need to become wicked. Her attitude is even more horrific when she calls on evil spirits to come and possess her, taking control of her actions. This sort of behavior causes the audience and reader to assume Lady Macbeth is a psychopath, and therefore would have reason to hold her responsible for having a major impact on her husband and driving him off, enlightening a twisted sinister and threatening dark side of him.
.... His insanity was a result of ambition taken much too far, ambition mutated and converted into evil by internal as well as social conflict; Macbeth’s wife did nothing to prevent Macbeth’s sickness and actually helped the problem develop. From his ambition came actions that filled his mind with conflict, dread, suspicion and guilt. It could be said that Macbeth was insane from the beginning, from the moment that the witches appeared to him in the third scene of the play or even from when he carved out his bloody passage in battle. Whether Macbeth was insane his whole life or just from the moment he first saw the imaginary dagger, it is indisputable that his visions and hallucinations only helped to supplement his lunacy.
There is heavy speculation surrounding the psychology of Macbeth. Nevertheless, even with an elementary understanding of the play one can attribute Macbeth with troubled emotions, these emotions being encompassed by anxiety and it is many divisions. Anxiety is defined as “an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs…, by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one's capacity to cope with it” (Merriam-Webster). The most common symptoms of anxiety disorder include feelings of “panic and fear, uncontrollable and obsessive thoughts, repeated thoughts or flashbacks of traumatic experiences, nightmares, ritualistic behaviors, problems sleeping, shortness of breath, ritualistic behaviors, an inability to be still and calm, nausea and dizziness, and palpitations” (WebMD). The exact causes of anxiety disorder are unknown, but research suggests the disorder is caused by changes in the brain and environmental stress. One division of emotion that falls under anxiety...
I decided to analyze Act II, Scene II in MacBeth using Psychoanalysis. I have previously examined the passage using Marxism and Queer Theory, so I thought it might be beneficial to scrutinize the scene from yet another angle. However, I will also discuss another scenes, as well, in order to fully, yet briefly, demonstrate MacBeth’s two opposing psychological constructions.