Insanity in Macbeth

Elizabeth Wurtzel an American writer once said, “Insanity is knowing that what you're doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can't stop it.” Insanity is something that is hard to stop. It takes over mind and causes person to give up until there is nothing left. Just like how in The Tragedy of Macbeth Lady Macbeth become insane from all the guilt and eventually suicide. Main character in this novel is Macbeth, who is captain in Scotland army. He turns into a villain from the hero. The Tragedy of Macbeth examines how the human temptation to greatness and agents of evil can easily lead person to do inhumane acts. Macbeth has a wife called Lady Macbeth, who is turning point in Macbeth’s life. Lady

Or, another cause of the schizophrenia could possibly be their passion.They stove so hard to make Macbeth king that they became totally obsessed with it. It became all the thought about and their everything revolved around it. When Lady Macbeth finds that Macbeth has been prophesized to be king, she doesn’t believe he is capable of fufilling the prophecy alone. So, she says to herseld, “hie thee hither, that I may pour my spirits in thine ear, and chastise with the valor of my tounge which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem to have thee crowned withal.” (Act 1, scene 5, lines 23-28) Macbeth becomes so passionate about becoming king that he killed anyone who could possibly take the throne away from him, even King Duncan. “ I have done the deed”, he said to his wife after killing him. (Act 2, Scene 4, line 14)

In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the character Macbeth descends into madness. Macbeth’s descent into madness first started with the witch’s prediction. If he had never met the witches none of this trouble would have occurred.

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.

In the Shakespearean play, Macbeth, the manipulation by three witches take a toll on a local thane by the name of Macbeth. They have such an effect on him, he goes as far to kill the King of Forres, Scotland and becomes King. However, the memory and guilt of his deeds sends the now-King, Macbeth into a spiral of insanity into his demise. Macbeth displays positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms of the schizophrenic disease which is caused by the oppressive powers of the witches, Lady Macbeth, and the actions he committed.

The play, Macbeth, also uses insanity as a device to contrast the mental state of characters as they change. As the play starts Lady Macbeth’s actions and thoughts show reason. However, after the murders and Macbeth’s insanity worsens she becomes unwell, as well. However, it is not until later in the play that Lady Macbeth falls to the same pressure. As stated by Shweta, “Macbeth succumbs to insanity, while Lady Macbeth is driven by Psychosis”. As Lady Macbeth wants to keep their lives stable she begins to fall into paranoia or psychosis, which is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as a “mental illness characterized by defective or lost contact with reality”. The most apparent scene of Lady Macbeth’s loss of reality is in Act Five, Scene One, “Out damn spot” (35) and “who would have thought the old / man to have so much blood in him” (39-40). This scene is when Lady Macbeth is trying wash her hands of blood that does not exist. The character, Lady Macbeth, makes it easy for a reader to see a contrast between mental stability and instability because she presents both very clear within one person and she slowly changes throughout 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.

Throughout the Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth, Lady Macbeth has moments where her avarice to become Queen of Scotland took over her mind and made her lose control of herself. The greed led Lady Macbeth into developing issues in her marriage, sleeping, and sanity. Because of her belief in special powers, paranoid thoughts, and feelings of unreality, it is clear that she suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in the trial of The People of Scotland vs. Macbeth, the prosecution will claim a tale of a power-hungry man who let ambition get the best of him. They will present physical evidence of him with the dagger, him conspiring with his wife, and him hiring men to kill. However, the evidence presented today by the defense will tell the true story: a man overtaken by mental illness. Macbeth displays the classic signs of narcissistic personality disorder: elevated sense of entitlement and delusions about power. While Macbeth did commit the murders, he was insane, and therefor did not commit the murders with criminal intent. The extent of his mental disorder has manifested in hallucinations and the gradual unraveling of his

Evil is a deceiving force. It can help you reach your goals but evil's gains are always bitter and two-faced. In Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, the character of Lady Macbeth chooses the path of evil to fulfill her unscrupulous ambition; nevertheless, all that evil brings to her is madness and restlessness. Evil is a powerful force throughout the play; it influences the two main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, to commit heinous crimes in order to achieve power. The idea of evil is presented even at the beginning of the play, since the play starts with witches. Witches have always been servants of the Devil, planning their malicious schemes against Macbeth.

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.

Macbeth, the main character in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, deals with a variety of personal struggles that cause his unusual behavior throughout the story. Macbeth appears to be delusional, paranoid, and victim of hallucinations and insomnia. Today, these symptoms would lead to the diagnosis of schizophrenia, a disease that blurs the line between what is real and what is not. Schizophrenia distorts the actions, feelings, and thoughts of a person, causing social withdrawal, unresponsiveness to emotional situations, hallucinations, and paranoia. This diagnostic explains Macbeth’s responses and actions towards certain events in the play.

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 illnesses affect one in five adults per year. Many of those who are affected may be aware of their illness or illnesses and have sought treatment for them. However, others may not be aware of their altered mental state which means that they are left untreated. This is evident in Macbeth’s case. He presented signs of a mental illness, such as avoidance, being easily startled, hallucinating, and having aggressive outbursts, but was not diagnosed which led to no treatment of the problem. Although he presented numerous symptoms of various mental illnesses, his case is best identified with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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.