In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the main character, Macbeth, murders King Duncan with the assistance of his devious wife, Lady Macbeth. Although they get away with the murder, they are unable to omit the feeling of remorse, although it affects them in different ways, the outcome is similar for both characters. It is obvious to the reader that killing Duncan inflicted the character’s odd behaviors and unstable mental state because of Shakespeare’s use of imagery related to illness. An example of Shakespeare using imagery related to illness to enforce the idea of mental deterioration in both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is the quote, “Macbeth does murder sleep, innocent sleep, chief nourisher in life’s feast.” (Page 45) This quote distinguishes that Macbeth is not only murdering King Duncan, but also the innocence tied to sleep, by ruining the chief nouisher, the reader can infer that characters in the play will fall ill because of Macbeth’s dark deed. Ironically, the characters that murdered sleep are the characters that become ill, not physically, but mentally. “These deeds must not be thought of after these ways, it will make us mad.” (Page 45) is another example of Shakespeare using imagery pertaining to illness to reinforce the idea of loss of sanity in the main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. This quote makes it conspicuous to the reader that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are aware that feeling guilty about the murder will lead to an ailing mind. This quote also reminds the reader that guilt is often followed by mental illness, foreshadowing the mental deterioration of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s minds. Shakespeare uses imagery pertaining to illness in the play when describing Macbeth to make it evident that he is mentally ill. ... ... middle of paper ... ...onstantly, due to the fact that it was abnormal behavior. It is apparent through the repetition of lines previously spoken directly after Duncan’s murder that Lady Macbeth feels guilty about the murder; the doctor reinforces the idea that Duncan’s murder leads her to an ill mind. It is obvious through Shakespeare’s use of imagery through illness that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth become ill due to feeling an immense amount of guilt about the murder of King Duncan. Shakespeare uses lines that foreshadow their consequence of the gruesome deed, he uses words related to illness when describing Macbeth, and shows Lady Macbeth’s corrupted mind through lines aforesaid directly after the murder of Duncan. These uses of imagery through illness make it perceptible to the reader that murdering King Duncan is the reason that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are left with deranged minds.
In Act I Macbeth is very uneasy in his and Lady Macbeth’s decision to kill Duncan. He says, “We shall proceed no further in this business. For he hath honored me of late.” (I.7.31-32) This is an unmistakable example of how Macbeth is not fully confident in his decisions. He feels guilt and anguish, as does Lady Macbeth, for she will not commit the murder herself, due to the fact that King Duncan looks too much like her father. At this point in the play, it is quite questionable as to weather either of the conspirators will consummate to the killings. Duncan’s death can be identified as the turning point of Macbeth’s sanity. This is when Macbeth starts to clearly display numerous symptoms of schizophrenia. O One of the most common symptoms of schizophrenia is the inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Macbeth displays this characteristic as he speaks vehemently to an empty chair, which he believes is the ghost of his old friend Banquo, who he just recently had killed. He says, “Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you? Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too. If charnel-houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites.” (III, 4) Macbeth is the only one to see the ghost, not even the audience is allowed by Shakespeare to see this apparition. After this, his mental stability begins to deteriorate throughout the course of the play. Guilt and obsession are also among the leading features associated with schizophrenia. After Macbeth is coaxed into killing Duncan, he is plagued by the blood, which he has spilt. However, he still manages to kill anyone who threatens his reign, even those who are very close to him. One could say that his obsession with maintaining his royal sta...
During the play Macbeth, the protagonist, Macbeth, takes part on a very long and perilous journey. But it didn’t have to be that way. In Macbeth, Shakespeare develops the idea that, while taking part in a journey filled with evil deeds, blame, and deceit, one slips further and further into insanity, losing sight of their former self in the process. That, through a combination of the two, one is unable to grow as an individual, and as each deceitful deed takes its toll, one’s mental state begins to deteriorate. Each deed making it more and more difficult for one to regain the lost pieces of their sanity.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a play centring around opposing forces trying to gain power in the succession for the throne of Scotland. Macbeth, in the beginning, is known to be a nobel and strong willed man, who is ready to fight for his country. However, one may see that Macbeth has a darker side to him, he is power hungry and blood thirsty, and will not stop until he has secured his spot as King of Scotland. Though Macbeth may be a tyrant, he is very naïve, gullible, and vulnerable. He is vulnerable and willing to be persuaded by many characters throughout the play, his wife, the witches to name a few, this is the first sign that his mental state is not as sharp as others. One will see the deterioration of Macbeth and his mental state as the play progresses, from level headedness and undisturbed to hallucinogenic, psychopathic and narcissistic. The triggering event for his mental deterioration is caused by the greed created from the witches first prophecy, that Macbeth will become King of Scotland (I.iii.53). Because of the greed causing his mental deterioration, Macbeth’s psychosis is what caused his own demise by the end of the play. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the tragic hero Macbeth’s demise is provoked by his hallucinogenic episodes, psychopathic actions and narcissistic behaviours.
Macbeth’s hallucinations symbolize the dangerous aspect of unchecked ambition. In the events preceding King Duncan’s murder, Macbeth sees “A dagger of the mind, a false creation / Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain” that leads him to King Duncan’s room (Shakespeare Act II Scene iii Line 50-51). Macbeth is fearful and guilty of the impending murder, but with his “fatal vision” that is not “sensible / To feeling as to sight”, he musters enough audacity to commit (Act II Scene iii Line 47-48). Macbeth’s ambition prompts him to not only imagine objects, but also to execute crimes out of invitations: “I go, and it is done. / The bell invites me.” (Act II Scene iii Line 75). The invitation from the bell signifies ambition’s annexation of Macbeth’s mind, and throughout the tragedy, it progressively becomes the only thing in Macbeth’s “conscience”.
After a long and hard battle, the Sergeant says to King Duncan, “For brave Macbeth,-well he deserves that name,- disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, which smok’d with bloody execution , like valour’s minion carv’d out his passage till he fac’d the slave;” (1.2.16) . This quote shows that Macbeth is viewed as a valiant soldier and a capable leader. However, it does not take long for the real Macbeth to be revealed- a blindly ambitious man, easily manipulated by the prospect of a higher status. His quest for power is what drives his insanity, and after having been deemed the Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth’s ambition can immediately be seen. In a soliloquy, Macbeth says, “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings; my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastica, shakes so my single state of man that function is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is but what is not” (1.3.140). Macbeth has just gained more power, and his immediate thought is of how to gain an even higher status as king. He imagines how to kill Duncan, and then is troubled by his thoughts, telling himself it is wrong. This inner struggle between Macbeth’s ambition and his hesitation to kill Duncan is the first sure sign of his mental deterioration. Although Macbeth does kill Duncan, he questions whether or not he should to do so, which is far different from how Macbeth feels about murder later in the play. Macbeth becomes king, and this power leads
Macbeth states that “Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success, Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor: If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings: My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is But what is not.Macbeth is now having thoughts about wanting to kill Duncan in order to become king and be at the top.Macbeth also uses the witches predictions as an excuse to go ahead and kill Duncan since the other predictions
Macbeth is a play in which the poetic atmosphere is very important; so important, indeed, that some recent commentators give the impression that this atmosphere, as created by the imagery of the play, is its determining quality. For those who pay most attention to these powerful atmospheric suggestions, this is doubtless true. Mr. Kenneth Muir, in his introduction to the play - which does not, by the way, interpret it simply from this point of view - aptly describes the cumulative effect of the imagery: "The contrast between light and darkness is part of a general antithesis between good and evil, devils and angels, evil and grace, hell and heaven . . . and the disease images of IV, iii and in the last act clearly reflect both the evil which is a disease, and Macbeth himself who is the disease from which his country suffers."(67-68)
William Shakespeare’s seventeenth century tragedy, Macbeth, tells the story of Macbeth, whose ambition leads him to murder his close friends. In the play, he is told that he will become king, but to speed up the process he is convinced to kill the current king, Duncan. Although he is portrayed as a vile, evil character, the scene before he murders Duncan, his thoughts after the murder, and his encounters with his friend’s ghost show that Macbeth truly is a man of conscience.
Key elements in the play substantiate the fact that Macbeth is a serious story, the first elements of Aristotle’s definition. From the first lines of the play, the mood is set featuring witches whom speak of witchcraft, potions and apparitions. Not only do the three witches aid in making this a serious story but also, they appealed to Elizabethans whom at the time believed in such supernatural phenomena. War for centuries has represented killing and feuding, thus, the war taking place between Scotland and Norway provided a dark component. The Thane of Cawdor’s rapidly approaching execution due to his deceiving the king also plays a role in this grim work. Murder throughout all of Macbeth is an essential aspect when dealing with the seriousness of the play. From the beginning, Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth to do anything to overthrow King Duncan, whom is the king of Scotland, the role Macbeth desperately yearns for. During the excursion to become king, Macbeth successfully murders King Duncan, Macduff’s wife and children, and with the help of a group of murderers Banquo; a brave general who will inherit the Scottish throne. Through the whole play, while such dank occurrences are used to create deep mood, Shakespeare also uses strong language and words. Such as when Lady Macbeth calls upon the gods to make her man-like so she will have the fortitude to kill King Duncan herself in this quote, “Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here… Make my blood thick… Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark.” This type of language provokes thoughts of death, blood and darkness though the imagery such dank words create. The play also follows through with its theme of blood by in the end of the play, having both of its lead characters die. Lady Macbeth, distraught by guilt over the bloodshed, commits suicide while Macbeth is murdered and beheaded by Macduff, a Scottish noblemen.
William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the history of English literature as well as the world’s paramount playwright. Possibly the most superlative writing attribute he possessed was his unmatched ability of characterization. Shakespeare created unique, opaque, and eminent characters who related to almost everyone. When one thinks of these famous characters, Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth comes into consideration. Macbeth is possibly Shakespearian Theatre’s densest and most disturbed character, and this prestigious title can be credited to his obvious psychological problems. The troubled mind of Macbeth can be related to several modern day psychological problems.
Many things can cause insanity within a character. However, the cause of Macbeth’s psychosis is the ambition he had to be king and the weakness within his character. In the
The author discusses the role of Lady Macbeth in the light of psychoanalysis. After Duncan’s murder, Lady Macbeth wishes to alleviate the guilt and remorse that her husband experiences. After this event she in a way switches roles with Macbeth. She is the one who gets haunted by bad dreams and suffers from insomnia. She is the person who is crushed by the guilt of deeds Macbeth committed and she eventually dies because of her own psychological torment. I will use this source to show how Lady Macbeth supported her husband in his anguish. This argument may
He “acts badly” (Bradley, 136) and loses his composure whenever his imagination triumphs over his practical side; however, Bradley also asserts that Macbeth’s imagination is “the best of him, something usually deeper and higher than his conscious thoughts” (133). Macbeth is therefore unable to make use of the “better” imagination with which he was endowed and instead only appears “firm, self-controlled and practical” when he is “hateful” (136). A product of these clashing sides, Macbeth’s murder of Duncan is borne of his inability to properly acknowledge the conclusions drawn by his imagination. In his soliloquies and in his visions, he recognizes that his planned act is immoral, but his “practical” side has other, higher priorities.... ...
In Macbeth, Shakespeare confronts audiences with universal and powerful themes of ambition and evil along with its consequences. Shakespeare explores the powerful theme of the human mind’s decent into madness, audiences find this theme most confronting because of its universal relevance. His use of dramatic devices includes soliloquies, animal imagery, clear characterisation and dramatic language. Themes of ambition and mental instability are evident in Lady Macbeth’s reaction to Macbeth’s letter detailing the prophecies, Macbeth’s hallucinations of Banquo’s ghost and finally in the scene where Lady Macbeth is found sleep walking, tortured by her involvement.
This specific action consequently resulted in Macbeth’s level of morality to continually decline as he is acutely aware of his own tyranny. Therefore Macbeth attempts to forget the horrific deed he has committed and be the figure that orders and disorders. Our perception of Macbeth being a wise and loyal soldier is now eroded, as we start to view Macbeth constantly questioning his own actions, and is also impelled to perpetrate further atrocities with the intention of covering up his previous wrong-doings.