Effects Of Madness In Macbeth

No reason was found in Macbeth’s hallucination of the dagger. The fact that Macbeth is even envisioning a dagger in which he would use to kill Duncan is irrational. Many would argue that the dagger is a painting of his guilty conscience, but as he continues to commit more heinous tyranny in Macbeth, Macbeth sees the dagger once more. It is important to note that later in the play, Lady Macbeth scolds Macbeth, “This is the very painting of your fear;/ This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,/ Led you to Duncan” (Shakespeare 52). The vision of the dagger controls Macbeth’s life before and after King Duncan’s death. This shows a lack of reasoning in Macbeth’s head, and he grasps for illogical reasons why Macbeth is feeling the way he does. Another instance that shows Macbeth’s lack of reason and abundance of irrationality taking over his life is the banquet

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.

Following Duncan's murder, Lady Macbeth suffered from hallucinations and during the evenings she slept walked and talked, frequently speaking about a "damned spot" that she could not wash clean from her hands. The physician who evaluated her crazed state, stated the following: "The heart is sorely charged" and with regard to her treatment he said, "This disease is beyond my practice. " This represents the illness of her mind and her inability to overcome the guilt that plagued her conscience. 

In addition to Macbeth’s visions and hallucinations, Lady Macbeth also experiences some. This includes the sleepwalking she endures and how much she attempts to scrub her hands clean from King Duncan’s blood, stating “out damned spot” when nothing is actually on her hands. This metaphorically displays the guilt both of them feel. Considering that, the fact that Macbeth experiences multiple hallucinations showcases his deteriorating mental state. This is also seen regarding Lady Macbeth’s death, Macbeth does not seem to care for it as he is too unconsciously deep since the hallucinations strain his relationship with others.

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth can be seen as hysterical, manic, and deranged. In this quote, as soon as Lady Macbeth hears Macbeth’s dream of becoming King, she reveals her extreme eagerness and enthusiasm she has hidden throughout the play to help him achieve this goal of his. This quote demonstrates Lady Macbeth’s crazed personality with great might and power used in her voice by commanding, “Was the hope drunk / Wherein you dressed yourself… Art thou afeard[?]” (Shakespeare I.vii.39-43). Lady Macbeth is overexcited and filled with a weird type of crazy knowing she now has an opportunity to fulfill her ravenous soul filled with the need to gain power.

The play starts with some supernatural characters who are the gateway to the plot the witches. The witches are the ones that caused Macbeth’s mental illness because without their prophecy then Macbeth would probably have never sought out to kill King Duncan. Almost immediately after Macbeth’s meet up with the witches, he has a hallucination of a knife. This becomes the first of many hallucinations he has after talking with the witches. Later on in the play, Macbeth goes to the witches again and they give him another prophecy about him being King. It seems like every time Macbeth sees the sisters, his mental stability goes all over the place because these predictions mix Macbeth’s thinking more, and he starts to think that nothing will happen to him. The idea of being King makes Macbeth become a self-destruct and a ticking time bomb. The witches start Macbeth’s mental illness, but his hallucinations also show Macbeth’s mental illness showing up.

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth shows signs of madness and villainy, but despite these dark qualities, Shakespeare provides more depth to her character, informing readers as to her motivations and other aspects of her identity than simply being mad. In Act One, the reader’s first impression of Lady Macbeth is that of a crazed, evil woman whose ambition pushes her to go to any lengths to succeed, hinting to her madness since the start; by the end of the play, she has began to sleepwalk, obsess over her past wrongdoings, and compulsively wash her hands, symptoms which also lead to her death. However, in the midst of her madness, details exposing a more relatable, human side of Lady Macbeth force readers or viewers to accept her as a person rather than simply as a demonic monster. For example, she implies having felt love for another being or understanding feeling love towards another person when she tells Macbeth that she has “given suck, and know/ How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks [her]” (1.7.?). Immediately following she says that if she had promised Macbeth she would do so, she would have killed the child she loved, juxtaposing the notion of human kindness with another example of her focused, almost psychopathic ambition.

As Macbeth begins to worry about the crime he has just committed, Lady Macbeth scolds him for being such a coward and says, “Why, worthy thane, / You do unbend your noble strength to think / So brainsickly of things” (2.2.58-60). Lady Macbeth tells him that he should not be so paranoid because it will only cause his brain to become weak, and weakness is the last thing they need right now. If Macbeth allows too much too much to go his head, Lady Macbeth assures him that it will only make him

She is practically delirious and can’t sleep at night without remembering the haunting image of Duncan’s murder. Not to mention Macduff’s whole family being killed by Macbeth (technically the murderers) while Macduff fled off to England. In Act Five, it is at this point of the play where Lady Macbeth confesses her crimes to the doctor and a gentlewoman while sleepwalking. “Out damned spot! Out, I say!

She started to sleep walk and refer to the murder of Macduff’s wife and children. From the beginning, Lady Macbeth wants her audience to think that she is a tough person as she is manipulating Macbeth to commit a act of sin which in contrast, when she is sleeping she shows another personality where she is weak and much of a coward. Throughout the play, we see from Macbeth’s horror at the banquet, the murder of King Duncan, and the letter from Macbeth announcing the witches foretelling. In all of this, there are deep and dense panorama of all her crimes being passed before her. In Act 5 scene 1, there is a conversation between the gentlewoman and the doctor being concern on how Lady Macbeth sleep walks and refers about blood.

She shows many signs of guilt and hallucinations, especially when she tries to wash the blood off of her hands that isn’t actually there. I also heard her say “Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (5.1.46-47). This shows that the guilt of pushing Macbeth to kill Duncan is slowly driving her insane. Also, Lady Macbeth admitting to the murder of Banquo and the family of Macduff, when she says “The thane of Fife had a wife, where is she now?” (5.1.39) and “Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave” (5.1.59-59), shows that her mental state has gotten really bad and she should be treated as quickly as

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!”,

When Macbeth imagines that there is a bloody dagger before him even before he is about to kill Duncan, it represents his guilt even before he has committed any crimes. Macbeth has planned the entire act of killing Duncan and as he walks to Duncan's room, he hallucinates that there is a bloody dagger sitting before him, inviting him to kill Duncan. This bloody dagger is a window to Macbeth's future of guilt after killing the king. Even before Macbeth has done a deed he feels guilty for what he is about to do. This dagger is there as a warning for what is to come in his future if he does kill the king.

When she learns of the predictions of the witches, she immediately goes to work on figuring out how to get her husband into the throne of power. She fears that her husband is too kind and that “impedes thee from the golden round” (1.5.31). She manipulates her power over and tells him that he would not be a man if he did not kill Duncan, "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" (1.7.56-58). Using her power over her husband, Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill King Duncan. However as Macbeth becomes power, and becomes more paranoid he begins to be the mastermind of his fate, as Lady Macbeth had once been. Macbeth plans to kill Banquo and Fleance, without communicating with Lady Macbeth about his plans; when he tells her of his plans, she warns him no to, where he responds she should “be innocent of the knowledge” (3.3.51). Macbeth’s plans were not successful, and Fleance escaped, which causes his “fit again. else been perfect.” (3.4.23) When Lady Macbeth was dominant, Macbeth experiences hallucinations, for instance the floating “dagger of the mind.” However, as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relationship shifts, Lady Macbeth is now experiencing hallucinations of the “damn’d spot,” the blood, which shows her guilt for the feeling of committing murder. Her guilt was so great, that while she was sleep walking, she began to re-enact 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.