Theme Of Blood And Guilt In Lady Macbeth

Since her entrance in Act 1 Scene 5, the actor and the audience would have already perceived much about Lady Macbeth’s character in relation to the play. A cunning, shrewd and possessing an almost ruthless persona, she has called upon supernatural entities in “cutting” off her gender, mocked Macbeth’s manhood while forcing the latter to commit atrocious crimes, one worse than the next. Once the Macbeths’ positions as rulers were secured, Macbeth’s thirst for power only grew from that point onwards as seen in Act 3. Unbeknownst to her, Macbeth had sent assassins against Banquo and any others would might threaten his position while refusing to involve Lady Macbeth in these affairs. There had been a polarizing shift in the power dynamic as Lady Macbeth’s influence and power over her husband waned to almost nothing. Fear and madness finally overcame her to a point where she started sleepwalking and rambling hysterically in

The association of blood and guilt has plagued Lady Macbeth since the first act when she invoked entities in readying herself for the regicide (“Make thick my blood, Stop us the access and passage to remorse” LIJNE). One can trace this back to her line in Act 2 Scene 2 “A little water clears us of this deed”, back when she non-chantey suggested to Macbeth that the regicide is nothing worth worrying about. Later, “One: Two” Macbeth was given a signal in the form of two bell strikes when the regicide was being carried out, and Lady Macbeth seem to recall their murders beginning with Duncan. She is furthermore afraid of Hell’s punishment as atonement for her sins, “Hell is murky”. Her recollection goes as far as to conjure images of the bountiful blood from the corpses of the two guards and Duncan, and her confidence of not being caught or suspected arises from their rank in