Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's Consciousness in Macbeth by Shakespeare

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Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's Consciousness in Macbeth by Shakespeare

Humans have free will, and this free will give us the right to choose between good and evil. In the play Macbeth by Shakespeare, Macbeth and his wife plot the murder of King Duncan, so that they can become rulers over Scotland. We realize that having the power to make conscience descions results in a responsibility for our descions. These responsibilities may manifest as guilt or happiness.

Macbeth is at first a man with a clear conscience until he is corrupted by his wife. Lady Macbeth is hungry for power so she presses Macbeth to kill Duncan as quickly as possible. The visions Macbeth sees before entering Duncan's chamber dwell entirely on the circumstances of horror and fear. Macbeth knows concisously that killing Duncan is wrong. Yet he also knows that to be king he has to kill Duncan. After the murders we realize that Macbeth has guilt, and pity for the murder that he just committed because he replies to Lady Macbeth "To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself."(II.ii.72)

Macbeths' tragedy can be paralleled to those tragedies of the present day. Just as Macbeth goes from fear, to guilt, and to finally his conscience destroying him. It also holds true for the murderer Susan Smith. Both murderers know conscientiously that the murders that they commit are wrong, they both feel guilt, and there both destroyed by the descions that they made.

Macbeths' conscience has the power to destroy his conscience when he commits the murder. As Joseph suggests "When the murder of Duncan is committed from an immediate Consciousness of the Fact, his Ambition is ingulph'd at that Instant, by the Horror of the Deed..."(42). Macbeth's disordered senses deceive h...

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...th. That no responsiblity was to be given on his death but he himself. Bradley also compares and contrast Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Joseph, Bertram. A Shakespeare Workbook. New York: Theatre

Arts Books, 1980. 219-220.

In this book Bertram Joseph discusses several topics on Shakespeare. Particular work interests were on belief of what was true and what was not. Concerning Macbeth, and the three witches. Joseph explains what the main downfall of the hero was and that he was not really a killer but a person who had been fooled.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. Eds. Sylvan

Barnet, et al. New York: New American Library, 1963.

Excellent novel written by William Shakespeare, of a love story about power and controll. His writting is well ahead of his time. Analogies, and other examples he uses to show emotion which seems only new to us.

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