Mental deterioration can wreak havoc on the human mind, causing unwieldy actions and harm on others. Macbeth is a fifteenth century play written by William Shakespeare. The play is a tragedy about a Scottish general named Macbeth. The play follows Macbeth as he begins to rise to power after he kills a rebel named McDonwald the Thane of Cawdor. Shortly after Macbeth’s major victory, he comes across the wyrd sisters who speak of his future success as the Thane of Cawdor and eventually the King of Scotland. As a reward for his success King Duncan crowned Macbeth Thane of Cawdor. As a result Macbeth is set on a path of death and destruction with one goal in mind, to become king. In the play Macbeth by Shakespeare, Macbeth’s mental deterioration displays the …show more content…
The list for his mental problems is very long and though as we can not list them all, we no some are for sure. The most obvious one is the hallucinations, when he sees the people he has murdered. Also his paranoia is a huge downfall in his character, he is always worried about something and stressing about it which causes him to mentally break down. Macbeth's mental condition continues to deteriorate as his pursuit of power continues to drive him to commit more crimes. After his first killing Duncan to last killing Malcolm's family, the greed only caused him to commit more and more crimes. He would have never totally satisfied, he would always want more, but that is do to his greed that had corrupted his mind and heart. In the play Macbeth by Shakespeare, Macbeth’s mental deterioration displays the effects of greed and power on the human heart. You can see how the mind of Macbeth had turned so much throughout the play and how greed and power can do that to a man. Greed is at the core of always wanting more power and by obtaining that power in any way
In Macbeth, Shakespeare explores the theme of moral decay produced by the temptation of power. When Macbeth hears the witches’ prophecy (1.3.45) he does not understand how he can become King of Scotland; the only way to attain the crown would be through committing the grave and unjustifiable sin of regicide. Despite this, Macbeth ignores his conscience (1.7.80) and when presented with the opportunity, aided by Lady Macbeth, he murders Duncan (2.1.62). Although he immediately regrets his actions and is filled with compunction (2.2.55, 2.2.63-65), Macbeth decides that there is no going back and “things bad begun make themselves strong by ill.” (3.2.55) Macbeth’s allows his inherent lust for power to completely outweigh his moral conscience.
It is in human nature that the more power one desires the more corrupt actions one must do to attain it. In Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth, a Scottish noble's craving for power leads him to do terrible deeds that leads to his demise. Shakespeare shows that power corrupts by using Macbeth who corrupts under the thought of have power over others. Macbeth becomes corrupt under the thought of becoming king and gaining almost complete control over the people that he rules. Macbeth wants the power badly enough to do horrible deeds such as commit regicide. Lady Macbeth becomes very ambitious and allows herself to become seduced to the
In this world, one of the strongest human drives seems to be the desire for power. In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Thane Macbeth seeks to gain power over Scotland. Through Macbeth’s search for power, he must choose between what is morally right or his inner motives. Macbeth gains power over others through the murders of King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff’s entire family along with his servants. After each murder, Macbeth becomes more confident in his search to gain power.
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.
They say greed is the root of all evil. This is especially shown in Macbeth, the desire of power becomes an apparent symbol throughout the play. How does a man loyal to the king turn so easily from the slight temptation of the crown. After the murder of Duncan Macbeth is seen picturing an imaginary dagger, “Is this a dagger which I see before me,/ The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.” (2.1.33-34 Macbeth) Macbeth isn’t even seen remorseful for the cruel deed he just commits; to a man who he swore an oath of loyalty to. Macbeth shows signs of greed and gluttony as the infatuation of power settles in him throughout the plot.
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.
William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, a tragedy based upon the fallen hero, by whom the play is written after, is commonly discussed with attention focused upon Macbeth’s mental health. While people in the Shakespearean era had very little understanding of the human brain, modern readers and psychologists have examined the thoughts, speech, and actions of Macbeth to determine the accumulation of his mental illnesses.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the main character starts off to be loyal and caring towards his wife and friends. Later in the story, Macbeth betrays all of his friends and becomes a murderous tyrant. The events that occurred in this play cause him to begin to have symptoms of mental illnesses. Macbeth could have been born with an illness or later developed one because of what he does throughout the play. Mental disorder is deterioration of one’s mind. This can be caused by stress, drug abuse, or disease. Macbeth ends up developing multiple different, but similar, mental illnesses. Some of the disorders he begins to display are Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Schizophrenia, Psychosis, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Borderline Personality Disorder and depression. Macbeth develops symptoms for each of these disorders/illnesses. Multiple events that go on in Macbeth’s life cause him to see things that are not there, and eventually make him go crazy. Towards the end of the story, he becomes very lonely because he had betrayed everyone.
Throughout Shakespeare’s gruesome play Macbeth, not only the main characters, but other characters have a lack of ability to differentiate between the illusions of their mind as well as the reality around them. This mental abnormality is made very prominent in the title character Macbeth, who suffers from paranoia on top of the fact he is hindered mentally by his own ambition. This suffering becomes even more apparent as the play progresses, consequently, Macbeth takes more action solely based on his instinct. Macbeth’s deteriorating mental state causes him to see and hear things that are not there, increasing his anxiety, therefore, distancing his contact with reality. This lack of contact ultimately drives Macbeth to madness, thus, fueled
The mind of each and every individual is unique in its own special way; some, of which, are steadfast and can roll with the punches, while others bend, conform, or break with the many psychological and physical influences in life. In the play The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth is introduced by the wounded sergeant as a person of battlefield valor and who showed great loyalty for his king, Duncan. His mind, at the time, expresses an authentic adamant and patriotic persona which seems hard to be swayed. It is later revealed that Macbeth expresses a lack in strength of character and is easily corrupted by his lust for power. Encouraged by his wife, nerve racked by the witches, and plagued by his thirst for authority, his
Mental illness is never far from Shakespeare’s plays. Hamlet’s depression, Lear’s madness, and, more debated, Macbeth’s schizoaffective disorder. As Shakespeare’s Macbeth progresses, the titular character is shown to have many abnormal tendencies. His paranoia associated with Macduff, hallucinations, and willingness to murder followed by intense regret all indicate that Macbeth is anything but neurotypical. The specific symptoms he experiences may have been associated with a mix of manic and melancholy in Shakespeare’s day, but now can be more accurately diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder.
The play Macbeth by William Shakespeare shows the change in people when power gets in the way. While he was gaining fame and power Macbeth, also was losing his happiness and satisfaction. According to Macbeth “To be thus is nothing/But to be safety thus”. This shows that he thinks that to be the king is nothing if he is not safe and happy; but the more he is receiving the less he feels. This leads him to commit more immoral acts which obscure the clarity of his thought and does not make him realize the real destruction he is going to cause himself. His feelings get in the way of how he perceives the world around him which is changing rapidly. The power that Macbeth achieves through negative means prevents him from thinking clearly, and
The play, Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare in the year 1606. At this time, mental illnesses were not diagnosed or treated. People spent their whole lives with a mental illness and did not know it. At the time that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, he probably did not realize that he was writing the main character, Macbeth, as a person with a mental illness. Macbeth showed the most symptoms to be diagnosed with a person with schizophrenia.
Many of people have heard the tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. The story revolves on a sequence of misfortunate events that take place when Macbeth makes immoral decisions to be king. In the play, Shakespeare shows how power can cause corruption in a human’s brain. Macbeth himself was not a very confident person, though he had a kind soul to begin with, he was easily influenced and gullible. Through the prophecies of the evil beings, an insignificant seed was planted in Macbeth. That spark of wealth and fortune caused the tyrant within him to awake. Which eventually lead to his fatal death. His ambition lead him to murder, go insane and become very superstitious.
Macbeth’s mental and moral deterioration throughout the play engages the audience illustrating how guilt overwhelms his conscience He believes he hears voices crying “Macbeth has murdered sleep” this demonstrates how he is battling against his morals and his ambition. His good qualities are battling his bad thoughts and this is the main reason for his mental downfall which makes for a deeply engaging plot. Macbeth goes from being a man of bravery, strength, honour yet he slowly loses these qualities. He once believed that killing a good man was an evil, un-worthy thing to do yet by the end of the play he is killing the people he once had close relationships with to get himself out of the mess that was dragging him deeper into despair and tragedy. This process is enthralling for the audience who cannot resist watching him go to any length to save himself as his morals go into deep decline. Ambition has completely taken over him in the soliloquy in which he states; “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleap itself and falls on the other.” In this instance Macbeth is interesting because he realises that the only thing that is making him want to kill Duncan is