Betrayal In Macbeth Essay

Macbeth shows several symptoms of schizophrenia. These symptoms are techniques that Shakespeare uses to create the idea that Macbeth actually has a mental illness. Macbeth’s main symptom is detachment from reality. While contemplating killing Banquo to secure his fate, Macbeth begins to see an imaginary dagger in front of him. He asks, “Art thou not, fatal vision sensible to feeling as to sight, or art thou a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-opposed brain?” (Act 2, Scene 2, lines 35-39). Then after Banquo is dead, Macbeth believe he sees his ghost during dinner with the county’s nobility. Macbeth says, “The

After going through with the murder with Lady Macbeth 's support and help, Macbeth starts talking about hearing people crying out 'Murder! ' in their sleep. He soon comes to the realisation that he will never be able to sleep innocently again. At the thought of this Macbeth begins to lose control but Lady Macbeth manages to keep him sane. Lady Macbeth appears as if she is in control of the situation, but she is already showing signs of weakness especially as she needed supernatural assistance and alcohol to help her get through the crime.

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!”,

Macbeth’s conscience is further tormented after he kills Duncan. He begins to get paranoid and hallucinates, hearing voices saying, “Sleep, Sleep no more! For Macbeth has murdered sleep”.

Lady Macbeth’s strength of will persists through the murder of King Duncan as it is she who tries to calm Macbeth after committing the crime by declaring confidently that, “a little water clears us of this deed,” (2.2.67). Afterward, however, Lady Macbeth’s strong and ambitious character begins to deteriorate into madness. Her first sign of weakness occurred when she confessed that she could not have killed the king, revealing a natural woman’s feelings, “had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t” (2.2.13-14). Just as ambition has affected her before more so then Macbeth before the crime, the guilt plagues her now more effectively afterward as she desperately tried to wash away the invisible blood from her sin, “Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,” (5.1.48-49). Lady Macbeth’s

Macbeth has hallucinations based around guilt and to others he seems delusional and insane. After he hires the three murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance, they come back unsuccessful, only managing to kill Banquo. He is haunted by a hallucination of an apparition of (supposedly) Banquo and says “(to GHOST) Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake. Thy gory locks at me./ Gentlemen, rise. His highness is not well” (Shakespeare 3.4.61-63). Without being prompted by the ghost, Macbeth responds and another noble is weary of his actions. He kills Banquo because Banquo suspects that Macbeth did something horrible (like killing the king) to become king. Macbeth wants to keep the power that he

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play.

Lady Macbeth is a complex and intriguing character in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. She is a difficult character to embody as her personality seems split between two sides, one that is pure evil, sly and conniving in contrast to her softer, vulnerable, weak and feminine side. In the play we see her in these two main ways. The reader may feel a certain animosity towards Lady Macbeth throughout the first few acts as her personality appears more and more distasteful, in spite of this towards the end she has a serious breakdown over the guilt that torments her, even in her sleep, regarding her hand in Duncan’s untimely death.

In Act ii, Scene 1, Macbeth says during a soliloquy in lines 33 – 64: ‘Is this a dagger I see before me/…let me clutch thee…/I have thee not, and yet I see thee still’. Is the dagger a ‘dagger of the mind’ (l.38), or a prank from the witches? It is impossible to know, however, the sight of this mysterious blood- covered dagger causes Macbeth to delve deep into evil thoughts and rumours: ‘ Wicked dreams abuse/…pale Hecate’s off ‘rings, and

The recurring supernatural forces that cause Macbeth to have hallucinations show how his guilt is slowly killing him. For example, before Macbeth kills Duncan, he visualizes a floating dagger that is not really there because he feels immense guilt about what he is about to do. When Macbeth says, “I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” (Shakespeare 51 and 53) he is discussing seeing the dagger but he is confused whether or not the dagger is actually there. The confusion shows that this hallucination is a force of a supernatural power and fabricated by Macbeth’s subconscious due to the tremendous guilt he feels about killing Duncan. Another example of the supernatural forces causing Macbeth to hallucinate is soon after Macbeth commits the murder, he tries to wash his hands clean from the blood, however no matter how much he scrubs his hands

A recurring theme in Macbeth is that of sleeplessness. The first time that sleeplessness is introduced by the witches is when the first witch is discussing an encounter with a sailor amongst the coven. She states that because the sailor's wife would not give her a chestnut, she made it so he could not sleep for nine times nine days. The witch also chopped off the sailor's thumb to show her savagery and a bit of cunning. Sleeplessness is brought up again after Macbeth murders Duncan. Macbeth says that he hears that Glaims shall sleep no more therefore Cawdor will not sleep. This could also be appearance vs. reality because did Macbeth hallucinate those messages or were they whispered far away and sent by the witches?

Shakespeare’s plays all contain themes that are still relevant to our lives today. Macbeth is no exception. Here Shakespeare utilizes an extensive variety of themes throughout the context of the play and how the characters exploit their actions towards each other. The main theme of “the Corrupting Power of Unchecked Ambition” is dealing with a blind lust for power capable of anything while the parallel theme of “Guilt and Remorse” deals with the effects of bad deeds on the deepest innards of human nature. Both can be found widely amongst the current generation and therefore are still

There is also evidence in Lady Macbeth's characterization of a breakdown within the person. Lady Macbeth falls into a psychological hell. Her conscience drives her to madness. In the same way as Macbeth, her sleepwalking signifies an unnatural end to the day and the fact that she too, is unable to restore herself. The sleepwalking also

Betrayal: the disloyal action that results in the ultimate feeling of hurt. For there to be betrayal, there must be trust; the breaking of trust is the ultimate way of betrayal. It spurs upon the influence of others and is provoked by the ambitious mind. To fulfill one's desires, betrayal is an action that is easy to perform. This concept is exhibited in William Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, as the implications of betrayal lead the main character, Macbeth, to his downfall. With the influence of the three evil witches, Macbeth is easily convinced about his auspicious future, causing him to overconfident himself and commit a betrayal that eventually results in one that he experiences. The ripple effect of the occurrence of betrayal

It is human nature to be intrigued by all things mystical and dangerous. We fear the unknown but seek it nonetheless out of greed. Most of Shakespeare’s works hold an element of the supernatural and the play Macbeth is no exception. In this play we see a contemporary morality that warns of the dangers of trafficking with instruments of darkness; the witches in the play prophesize of Macbeths future as king, and Macbeth blinded by his hunger for power fails to recognize that the witches prophecies are luring him to evil . In act 1 scène 3 we see the effect that the excitement of the prophecies has had on his imagination as he begins to contemplate murdering the king. As Macbeth gets closer to