Guilt in Lady Macbeth by William Shakespeare Essay

   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.

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

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth’s ultimate downfall is due to the guilt he feels over everything he has done. The motif of supernatural forces, specifically the hallucinations and lack of sleep that Macbeth experiences, project the force of the guilt that eventually causes Macbeth’s destruction. Shakespeare uses the motif of supernatural forces to express how the force of the guilt Macbeth feels eventually leads to his final demolition in the play Macbeth.

In William Shakespeare's play Macbeth he uses many forms of imagery, he uses this imagery to outline major themes in the book. The imagery used in the play Macbeth makes the audience immediately captivated and helps the audience connect to the characters in the play.

“No amount of guilt contains the past and no amount of worrying can change the future” (Umar Ibn Al-Khattab). Throughout life you experienced problems that you might feel guilty of later on. You have to decide yourself on how you look at it. In the play, The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth is a strong and emotionless woman. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth faces conflicts and learns that she is suffering more guilt than what she realized.

Lady Macbeth is ruthless and power hungry, but by the end of the play, her guilty conscience has ruined her mind and made her feel that her life is not worth living. In the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth to kill King Duncan to gain the power of the throne. Lady Macbeth lets her guilty conscience take control when she confessed that she could not have killed King Duncan. Therefore, what leads to Lady Macbeth’s downfall is when she tries to wash away the invisible blood.

Although Macbeth internally correlates his actions to the fulfillment of his destiny, his guilty conscience illustrates his inner substantiation of the fact that that he acts of his own free will.

In the search of control, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth surrendered to the inveigling but ignoble way to power. Although at first the idea worked, moral retribution came to punish the dishonorable. Shakespeare had guilt torture Lady Macbeth and Macbeth for their deeds to demonstrate how necessary adhering to one’s morals is. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were punished accordingly for leaving a trail of bodies in their quest for the

Have you ever done something that you will regret for the rest of your life? Killing someone is considered to be the worst crime of humanity but planning to kill someone is just evil. Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, who was loyal, courageous and honorable knight, protected his king from a traitor. His wife, Lady Macbeth is a stronger character, more dominant in the relationship with Macbeth. She is also a hideous woman, who influences her husband by making him commit murder by insulting and criticizing him. After a successful plan to kill King Duncan, Macbeth quickly continued to kill more people that could get in his way, even his best friend and family. When a person is committing a crime, they feel guilty for something they did. They