Essay on Evil Is an Illness in Shakespeare's MacBeth

In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth the reader watches as Macbeth changes gradually as the play endures. He are transforms from a loyal person with a loving and loyal disposition with other people, into a tyrants who are willing to kill in order to keep himself on the throne. He is tormented with fear, regret, and guilt. When someone does something they know is wrong it causes them to fall prey to their own emotions.

Lady Macbeth is conscience only of her desire to gain power, and pays little attention to the consequences that are sure to follower her selfish actions. In order to control Macbeth’s guilt she says,” These deeds must not be thought. After these ways; so it will make us mad (Thomson).” She starts to put ideas in Macbeth’s head, and attempts to make him heartless about murder.

Macbeth’s unfettered lust for power led to his biggest detriment, the transformation into a man living in fear who cannot possibly escape this continuous cycle of trepidation. Though Macbeth may hide these fears behind a strong exterior throughout the play, it remains a primary emotion and potent motivating force in his life.

When all the symptoms in the play are taken into consideration, it is reasonable to say that Macbeth has

The deterioration of Macbeth’s character illustrated throughout Shakespeare’s play shows the decline of his conscience. Initially characterized as a brave and noble general, his actions driven by mere ambition reduce him to an evil tyrant without purpose or meaning. “[Life] is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing”. (Act 5, Scene 5)

In this essay I shall be looking at the way evil is portrayed in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. I will be concentrating on the characters in the play that contribute to the evil themes of the play. It is clear from the start of the play that the witches are the main source of evil.

Using each other as aids, these characters bounce their schemes off of one another until they have infected almost every one and unknowingly making their disease worse. "Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend to it." If Macbeth wants his ambitions to come true, he must have a certain drive of illness. But in neither Lady Macbeth nor Macbeth has the disease fully encompassed their whole bodies. They both have some of their innocence still intact. Lady Macbeth would not be able to kill King Duncan on her own so she calls upon the evil spirits saying, "Unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe, top full direst cruelty. Make thick my blood... Come to my woman's breast and take my milk for gall." Lady Macbeth needs the interference of an evil spirit to help her complete such a crime of murder. But, with the help of this evil spirit, she is able to spread her evil thoughts to Macbeth. After Macbeth is done with the murder of King Duncan a knife appears to him. Although it may appear to be a side effect of this evil disease, his hallucinations are the one of the only thing that still shows his humanness and his innocence. Macbeth is feeling scared and evil for the murder that he has committed and shows this by saying "Will all great Neptune's wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather make the green one red." These

Lady Macbeth seems as if she’s stronger, but soon in the play, she gets extremely affected, and the consequences are extreme as well. The murders of the many people in this play have a supernatural force to the maximum, but the reality is, it's the madness that's been taken to its maximum. Macbeth and his Lady both suffer from insanity and gain the consequences from the desperation for power. Macbeth’s hallucinations first start with the night of King Duncan’s murder.

Illness has always been a part of human life. Even with modern medicine and technical advances, illnesses and diseases such as AIDS and cancer have a high mortality rate. Everyone knows at least someone who had some sort of illness in their life. It’s an inescapable fact of life. Because of this, people have developed many ways to handle possessing an illness. Some simply treat it a logical and medical way, while others try to draw meaning from the situation and experience. One such person named Susan Sontag, takes a complex and sometimes backward approach to understanding and dealing with having an illness in her book “Illness as Metaphor”.

Sickness is the social state, which describes how the social role is affected by the illness. For example, an individual could have cancer which would be the disease. Illness would refer to the person possibly developing depression, feeling nauseous and weak all the time, and having pain in the joints and bones. Sickness means that the individual may stay away from other people due to a weakened immune system and have to stay home from work for medical appointments and not feeling strong

The definition of human illness is a condition of being unhealthy in a human’s body or mind (Merriam-Webster). These illnesses are scientifically proven to come from contamination of adaptations humans, or Homo sapiens, obtained during the various stages of evolution occurring as far back as the Pre-life level. This novel, Evolving Health: The Origins of Illness and How the Modern World Is Making Us Sick, by Noel Boaz explores the various origins of adaptive downfalls in evolution, and how these downfalls affect the modern world.

Throughout history, illness has been defined differently depending on how the wide variety of cultures perceived it. Early times would use supernatural explanations to understand the cause of illnesses. For example, their transcendental reasoning may talk about evil spirits, demons, devils, or divine punishment for committing sins. Modern definition of an illness would be the pain a sick person feels. It’s more focused on scientific clarifications where illness is a biological and mental abnormality with a common pattern of symptoms that can be treated with the proper medication.

Being ill can be defined as ‘not being in your normal state of health’ cited in The Open University (2014, p.43). Although being ill is often thought of as something not quite right with a person’s body, it is not only the effect being ill has on your body but also the social consequences of being ill, it affects how you ‘play a part in life around you’ (The Open University, 2014, p.51). If a person is ill, they are expected to act in a certain way, often referred to as the sick role. According to Shilling (2002) cited in The Open University (2014), the sick role has three key features. Being ill is not the individuals fault, the ill person is exempt from ordinary daily expectations and lastly the ill person must seek help from a doctor or nurse who will then help them to recover from their illness.

Macbeth is without a doubt a play about evil. The play revolves around the bad and wicked qualities in human nature, but Shakespeare also contrasts this evil with the power of good. In this essay I will explore the ways in which Shakespeare contrasted good and evil in Macbeth.

A disease is a particular quality, habit, or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person or group of people. And let me tell you, there is a disease that plagues our nation. One that has yet to be cured, one that possibly has not even been attempted to be cured. Now, this disease which ails us all- for it does not discriminate- is not one with bodily symptoms. It does not manifest itself in fever, fatigue, vomiting, or loose stools. Instead it is a subtle affliction. So subtle in fact, that one may not even realize they are suffering from it.