Guilt in Macbeth by William Shakespeare Essay examples

   Shakespeare's "Macbeth" holds many hidden themes within its already exuberant plot.  The first of these surrounds the murder of Duncan and the role that both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth himself played.  However, the true guilt of the murder can fall on either character.  Although Macbeth physically committed the crime, it was Lady Macbeth that pushed him to his limits of rational thought and essentially made fun of him to lower his esteem.  With Macbeth's defenses down, it was an easy task for Lady Macbeth to influence Duncan's murder and make up an excuse as to why she could not do it herself.  The guilt of Duncan's murder can be placed firmly on the head on Lady Macbeth.

The result of Macbeth‘s guilt is that he fears he will go to Hell. “I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’ stuck in my throat,” page 28. For someone who believes in heaven, the ultimate proof of guilt would be to go to Hell after death. Macbeth is doubting his place in heaven and thinking that his crime has given him a great need of blessing, or he will be branded a sinner when death comes if he cannot say ‘Amen’ after the murder. On the other hand, Lady Macbeth says to “Consider it not so deeply,” page 28. She is either telling Macbeth to not to worry about it, or telling herself as well. Most likely, she feels guiltless, because on page 29, the only shame she says she would feel is if she were a white-hearted coward like Macbeth. Macbeth's guilt is so intense that it prevents him from framing the guards (p. 29) or being sure of going to Heaven, while Lady Macbeth's guiltlessness makes her mock her husband for cowardice.

Macbeth, a tragedy written by William Shakespeare and edited by Maynard Mack and Robert Boynton, displays the many ways in which guilt manifests itself and the effects it has on its victims. Throughout the play, characters including Lady Macbeth are deeply affected by guilt in ways they had never expected. Macbeth takes its audience on a journey through the process in which guilty gradually eats away at Lady Macbeth and forces her to do what she thinks is best. Though Lady Macbeth may have initially seemed unaffected by the murders she had been involved in, her desires eventually faded and were replaced with an invincible feeling of guilt which eventually took her life.

A deadly combination of ambition and guilt poisons both Macbeth and his wife and leads to their deaths in the end. Ruined by her desire for power, Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness is more vivid and guilt seems to affect her more than her husband, even though he is responsible for more crimes. Her request to the spirits to “unsex [her] here,/ And fill [her], from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direst cruelty!” is contrasted as the more guilty she feels, the more weak and sensitive she become, a polar opposite of her usual masculine and bold self (1.5.44-46). As a result, she is unable to cope with the guilt and meets her ultimate demise by taking her life. This has an immediate effect on Macbeth: the almost always apparent tension of ambition and guilt disappears. He does not seem interested in living and is ready to face death in a manner more relatable to his former self rather than the murderer he has become. Moreover, Macbeth’s final remark is “Arm, arm, and out!”,

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the theme of guilt and conscience is one of many explored throughout the play. Macbeth, is a well respected Scottish noble who in the beginning of the play is a man everyone looks up to; however as the play progresses he makes a number of bad decisions. Eventually, as a result of his actions he suffers guilt and this plays heavily upon his character until his personality is completely destroyed. Shakespeare uses a range of techniques in order to develop this theme such as, characters, imagery.

Guilt is a very strong and uncomfortable feeling that often results from one’s own actions. This strong emotion is one of the theme ideas in William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel guilt, but they react in different ways. Guilt hardens Macbeth, but cause Lady Macbeth to commit suicide. As Macbeth shrives to success guilt overcome’s Macbeth where he can no longer think straight. Initially Macbeth planned was to kill Duncan but it wasn’t enough he also had to kill Banquo and Macduff’s family. On the other hand Lady Macbeth had to call upon the weird sister to unsexed her so she had no true feeling towards anything as if she was a man. However, the true guilt of the murder

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.

Firstly, the person in Macbeth that was a serious victim of guilt was Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth went more insane than Macbeth even though she did not kill anyone. She was overwhelmed by guilt causing her conscience to see creepy fake illusions. The unnamed narrator insanity was caused by beating of the old man hideous heart and his evil eye, both characters use symbolism to symbolizes the malicious of both the old mans that ruined their lives. Lady Macbeth is scared when she sees her hands covered in blood, when Lady Macbeth did the murder she did not believe that it would harm her afterwards but it did which made her lose her mind. Lady Macbeth says “Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One; two: why/ then ‘tis time to don’t. Hell is murky. Fie my lord, / fie! a solider and afeard? What need we hear who know/ it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who/ would have thought the old man to have had so much/ blood in him? (5.1 32-37). Lady Macbeth feels responsible for Macbeths insanity; with his insanity she also went insane. Lady Macbeth sleeps walks and starts washing her hands without water unconscious. The blood on her hand symbolizes her guilt and Duncan’s blood. She also feels like what she is going through is like Hell,

iv. 136-140). From this quote it can be inferred that Macbeth is concerned for himself because of all of the crimes that he is committed and is scared that people are coming after him. He has already stepped in the river of blood but cannot go back because he is already too deep and plans to continue farther. Holding the guilt of killing the most beloved King and the thought that people are coming after him, drives Macbeth to making poor decisions to protect himself and the use of blood helps the reader to see how insane Macbeth really is. Macbeth is not the only character in the play who goes insane because of guilt, his wife Lady Macbeth too goes insane with holding the guilt of ruining lives of innocent people. At one point she feels so guilty she begins to have hallucinations and even starts sleepwalking and talking. During the night when she was sleepwalking she tried to remove the blood that has stained her hands and becomes extremely paranoid that the blood is not coming off. It can be inferred that even though Lady Macbeth only helped to plan the murders she never actually kill someone, but she still carries the guilt as if she did. Shakespeare is trying to showcase with the motif of blood that no matter what type of crime is committed there is still guilt and

Along with ambition, guilt is another common theme seen throughout Macbeth.  Almost all of the main characters are seen to have some sort of guilt during the course of the play, but two stand out far beyond the rest.  That is Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.  Since they both were in on the conspiracy to kill King Duncan, they both share it as a heavy burden.  They both seem to handle it in different ways however.  Macbeth, being the one who has committed the actual murder or one of his close friends, is immediately shown to be full of regret as he states, "Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst"(2.2.75-76).  Macbeth shows for a short time that he would go back and "wake," or revive King Duncan if he had the chance.  We then see Macbeth start to become somewhat insane, being eaten away by the guilt of this murder.  As for Lady Macbeth, she is guilty for a multitude of reasons.  Along with Macbeth, Lady Macbeth does share the burden of killing King Duncan, but is also burdened by Macbeth 's growing reign of tyranny.  As seen throughout the last few acts, Lady Macbeth is being eaten away by her guilt, feeling that this is all her fault.  Right before the scene where Invernous, Macbeth 's castle, is stormed she her guilt drives her to end it all.  She commits suicide right before Macbeth 's rule comes to a tragic end.  I feel that Shakespeare has used the theme of

Guilt is essential in Macbeth, because it evokes our conscience to feel emotion and regret. Macbeth, is written by William Shakespeare, a story about a power-hungry and ambitious leader who does many vicious acts to gain power. After murdering Duncan and hiring people to kill his friend Banquo, Lady Macduff and her son he feels major guilt. Macbeth is living a miserable life; he can not sleep and is always thinking about what he has done. Guilt is a good emotion to feel; it means one has feelings and emotions even after committing a serious crime. The people Macbeth murders are innocent; he has no reason to kill them. Macbeth does all of this for himself; he is very full of himself and he does not care what has to be done to get what he wants. He always wants everything to go his way, no matter who gets hurt.

At the beginning of the play Macbeth is seen as a courageous soldier who is loyal to the King but is corrupted from the witches prophecies and by his and Lady Macbeth’s ambition. Their marriage is of convenience for Lady Macbeth, but for Macbeth it is more than that. He loves his wife, and she takes advantage of that. She is continuously making him feel guilty, for being weak, and challenges his manhood, with these words "When you durst do it, then you were a man, and, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man." (I,vi,50-52), which means, Be a man, and I will love you as one.

Initially, she is a beguiling instigator of murder, and her first reaction to blood displays this nonchalant attitude. She tells Macbeth, “My hands are of your colour, but I shame / To wear a heart so white” (IIii 24). Lady Macbeth effortlessly washes off this blood with water, disregarding the guilt. Lady Macbeth’s second reaction to blood, however, exhibits shock over her husband’s free acts of cruelty. She sees the guards her husband has slain and faints. Covered in blood, the murdered guards underline Macbeth’s malice and cruelty. Therefore, when Lady Macbeth faints at the sight of these symbols, she makes obvious her change from plotting instigator to shocked observer. Blood continues to symbolize guilt, and eventually, just as Macbeth wants to remove blood from his hands, Lady Macbeth wants to cleanse her hands of blood and guilt. She visualizes a spot of blood on her hands and perpetually tries to wash it off. “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” (Vi 72). The stigma of guilt, however, cannot be removed, which reveals Lady Macbeth’s haunting, incurable guilt over the murders during Macbeth’s reign. Lady Macbeth continues in woeful guilt, saying “The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now? / What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more / o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with / this starting” (Vi 72). She says her hands will never be clean, indicating that

As the late English poet William Shakespeare said, “suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.” In other words, the fear of getting caught is always a persistent thought in the mind of someone who is guilty. William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe both utilize literary devices to portray the theme of guilt in their stories and to show how a guilty conscience can lead to insanity.

   The dark aura surrounding Shakespeare's Macbeth is well deserved, as is the darkness shrouding its title character. Although Macbeth is certainly a villainous, evil man based solely on his actions, a fuller examination of his character's portrayal leads to a more sympathetic view of him. The play does not portray Macbeth simply as a cold-blooded murderer, but rather as a tortured soul attempting to deal with the atrocities surrounding him.