Guilt In The Play 'Macbeth' By Veronica Roth

   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.

After he kills Duncan, Macbeth carries all the guilt, and is too shaken by shame to continue, while Lady Macbeth either feels no guilt, or represses it, because she is able to continue the deed and frame Duncan’s guards.

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.

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the title character Macbeth and his wife are both exceptionally ambitious, often taking rather radical measures to accomplish their goals. While this ruthless drive to power is seemingly prosperous at first, it quickly crumbles to naught as guilt infects their minds with grim consequences to follow. Macbeth transforms from a noble general to a guilt-ridden and despaired murderer, while Lady Macbeth’s usually stoic and masculine persona deteriorates into a pitiful and anxious shell of her former self. The feeling of remorse quickly plagues the two characters and overpowers ambition through manifesting itself through nightmares, ghosts, and paranoia, and ultimately leads to their demise.

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

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.

The story “The Tragedy Of Macbeth” also called The Scottish Play was written in 1606, by William Shakespeare. The story takes place in Scotland where King Duncan is in charge the country. Macbeth who is the Thames of Glamis, will go on an adventure to take leadership of the country of Scotland, while he also battles with his personal insanity along the way. Macbeth will eventually be King of Scotland and have a miserable reign due to his guilt, inadequacy and tyranny.

Everyone deals with guilt at least one time throughout their life, and several authors use guilt to help build up suspense in their story. Guilt in Macbeth not only affects his mental state of mind, but it also destroys him physically, along with a few other characters such as Lady Macbeth. The characters are affected by guilt so much, that it actually leads to their death essentially, just because they were not able to handle the consequences for the events that occurred. Despite being destroyed by guilt, they were still forced to carry on with their lives and they did have to try to hide it, even though Macbeth was not doing so well with that. His hallucinations were giving him up and eventually everyone knew the he had murdered Duncan

When Lady Macbeth learns from her husband that he has been phopchiesized to be King of Scotland, she begins a plot to kill King Duncan so that she may become Queen. She ask Macbeth to join her in this planned crime and plost to blame the murder on the guards. Lady Macbeth considers nothing of Duncan’s life or those of the guard’s. She has let the possibility of acquiring power, convince her into persuading her husband into kill a personal friend and ally of theirs. She brushes off this foul deed with the famous quote “What’s done is done”.

Excessive guilt can completely alter a person's life. Sleep disturbances, stomach aches, hallucinations, and muscle tension are just some of the results of it. Some of which play a large role in the play Macbeth. Through the characters of Macbeth along with Lady Macbeth from Macbeth, William Shakespeare, the author, illustrates the belief that guilt is destructive when people commit murder for their own personal advantage. After being told by the Three Witches he would be king, Macbeth begins to have a deep desire for the throne.

All parts of Lady Macbeth are aware she has done wrong and now she has to suffer for it. Shakespeare is not necessarily saying that guilt is always bad, it is a better alternative to Macbeth’s borderline psychopathy with his complete lack of remorse, and guilt can often serve as a spiritual stop sign warning its host to proceed with caution. In a healthy person, guilt occurs naturally from time to time, in order for it to actually occur it functions alongside the Id and Ego, but begins to become unhealthy when that person lets it become all-consuming like Lady Macbeth does. Later in the play, Lady Macbeth has stopped all wrongdoing, some Shakespearean scholars even believing she shifts back towards a virtuous path, sending a warning to Lady Macduff, but she still feels shame and condemns herself. Her Superego becomes overactive, acting like an impenetrable barrier of which Lady Macbeth cannot pass through.

Hark! I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss ‘em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.” Next, Macbeth says “I have done the deed.” Macbeth killed Duncan, in the future Macbeth has extreme guilt for what he has done and it haunts

Macbeth constantly acts on an impulse and does not think of the repercussions to his actions. For example, after he kills King Duncan, he decides, on a whim, that the guards must go too. Macbeth tries to confess his murderous crime by saying, “O, yet I do repent me of my fury, That I did kill them” (II.iii.100-101). Macbeth trepidation makes him abandon the plan, made by Lady Macbeth, and act irrationally.

Macbeth is having trouble finding it in himself to kill Duncan because he dares to “do all that may become a man” (I, vii, 47). After killing Duncan, Macbeth no longer blaming fate, finds himself responsible for Duncan's death. Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth, feels as though she has the smell of blood on her hands for committing murder even though she didn't physically kill anyone. Macbeth experiences feelings of being responsible for his wife’s guilt. He asks the doctor “canst thou not minister to a mind diseased” in hopes that the doctor can help his wife (V, iii, 40).