Macbeth Analysis

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth’s visions and hallucinations play a significant role and contribute to the development of his character. In the play Macbeth, a man is driven to murder his king and his companions after receiving a fairly ambiguous prophecy told by three witches. Although the witches triggered the series of events that later aid Macbeth’s descent into complete insanity, Macbeth is portrayed from the very beginning as a fierce and violent soldier. As the play goes on, several internal conflicts inside of Macbeth become clear. After he performs several bloody tasks, the madness inside of Macbeth is unmistakably visible to everyone around him. As a result of this insanity, he sees visions and hallucinations. Each time Macbeth

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth’s visions and hallucinations play a significant role and contribute to the development of his character. In the play Macbeth, a man is driven to murder his king and his companions after receiving a fairly ambiguous prophecy told by three witches. Although the witches triggered the series of events that later aid Macbeth’s descent into complete insanity, Macbeth is portrayed from the very beginning as a fierce and violent soldier. As the play goes on, several internal conflicts inside of Macbeth become clear. After he performs several bloody tasks, the madness inside of Macbeth is unmistakably visible to everyone around him. As a result of this insanity, he sees visions and hallucinations. Each time Macbeth

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.

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.

Committing a crime always comes with a price. Whether that is the tangible physicality of the consequences, or that of a mental one, it takes a toll on a person. William Shakespeare’s Macbeth conveys such an example in a way that shows how internal struggles can alter a person greatly, and cause them to become someone they one may have never thought they would have become. The couple Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are differently involved in the murders, and they are significant because each death reveals or changes their mindset, trust, and guilt in each character.

With Macbeth’s unwavering ambition, he is motivated to kill Macduff’s family to secure his position as the king. Macbeth refuses to let his good nature slow him down and decides to act out his thoughts immediately as he knows his conscience would stop him from achieving his goal and put all his previous work to waste otherwise. His mind has been brainwashed to a point where he sees hesitation (due to his conflict with his virtuous nature) as a symbol of cowardice and foolishness. The overwhelming stress and guilt he faces which results his devastating mental decay have eventually made him lose grip of his conscience. The guilt from ordering to kill Macduff’s whole family because of his ambition which causes him to refuse to give up on his throne has provoked Macbeth’s mental health to further

In the play Macbeth changes a lot in the story, although there was a lot to influence him to change. In the play Macbeth used to respect his king and be very loyal to him. As the story goes on he meets different people who make him think different. His first encounter with the witches made him more ambitious but he struggled to kill the king. Lady Macbeth also played a big part in changing him by telling him many times that he was still a boy and will never be a man. She convinces him to kill the king and commit the first of his evil deeds. After killing the king he is very paranoid and gets hallucinations and can't sleep. His idea of becoming a man was insane and inhuman. He feels

Macbeth is feeling the guilt for killing the king and everyone in that point in the story, to the point where he is starting to see ghosts that haunt him for the unlawful deeds he has done. Macbeth should belong in a place for the mental but his mind still changes once

Macbeth was influenced by the witches and his wife, but actions that followed his initial murder of the King convey a man full of internal conflict. Macbeth is plagued by worry and almost aborts the crime. It takes Lady Macbeth’s steely sense of purpose to push him into the deed. After the murder, however, her powerful personality begins to disintegrate, leaving Macbeth increasingly alone. He fluctuates between fits of fevered action, in which he plots a series of murders to secure his throne, and moments of terrible guilt exhibited when he visualizes the ghost of Banquo.

To this day, Macbeth remains one of Shakespeare’s most well know tradgies. In the beginging, Macbeth is a moral man. He is brave, and strong; However, by the end he turns into what we see as more feminine. The play supports the ideal that his primary mitive is his belief of a threatned masculine self imiage.

As Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth introduces insanity or mental instability readers see a difference between characters. In Macbeth, the characters that become mentally unwell are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after the murder of Duncan, the former King. This murder at the hands of Macbeth, and under their roof is the trigger that pushes the Macbeths to the edge of insanity. Now, a reader can clearly see a contrast begin to appear between Macbeth and the other characters of the play. For example, in Act Three Scene Two, Macbeth states, “Unsafe the while, that we must lave/ Our honors in these flattering streams/ And make our faces vizards to our hearts/ Disguising what they are” (3.2, 32-35). This shows how Macbeth begins to change; he acts guilty and paranoid in this scene. He soon after decides to murder Banquo and his son, because he believes Banquo knows what he has done. According to the article “Mechanics of Madness in Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear”, “guilt and mistrust force him to make murder habit” (Ebsco) Guilt is sign of mental collapse and a habit of murder would make a reader believe this is the point that Macbeth has become mentally unstable. This is also when a contrast would appear between Macbeth and other characters. At this point we can see a difference between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s characters. As the Macbeths are hosting a dinner party Lady Macbeth is constantly reminding Macbeth of his hosting manners, however, Macbeth is distracted by the ghost of Banquo that he thinks he sees. Lady Macbeth says to Macbeth, “You did not give the cheer... While ‘tis a-making, ‘tis given the welcome” (3.4, 35-37). This is showing that Macbeth is so guilty that he is having hallucination of the ghost of Banquo and Lady Macbeth is worried that people will notice. The contrast between these two characters is so apparent because Lady Macbeth is still “in control of her emotions and the situation” (Mechanics of Madness), but Macbeth is losing his mental state rapidly at this point. However, Lady Macbeth also has a clear change in her actions and thoughts due to the same trigger, the murder of Duncan. The article “The Mechanics of Madness” states that, “she undergoes drastic changes after the crime is

“For brave Macbeth disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, which smoked with bloody execution, like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage till he faced the slave; which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops, and fixed his head upon our battlements.” (1.2.18-25) This depiction of Macbeth’s gruesome action towards Macdonwald is so vivid, it shows how vigorous, aggressive, and fierce of a person he is. The intensity that is shown in the quote can be found all throughout William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Shakespeare's concept of desire is displayed when a person has the confidence to act upon it.

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

Madness in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and “Hamlet” results in the failure of a person trying to cope with unfortunate events. Tragedy occurs in both plays, causing Macbeth and Hamlet to react differently. Both characters begin sane, but it is noted by soliloquies and mental breakdowns that madness would become inevitable. In “Macbeth” and “Hamlet” more than one character goes mad, whether it is Macbeth and Hamlet or Lady Macbeth and Ophelia, their moral sense is fogged by revenge, guilt and the loss of trust. For instance, guilt is weighed heavily on Macbeth’s mind; a prophecy given by three witches to kill Banquo commences when Macbeth hires three murderers to complete the remorseless job.

There are many conflicts found in the play Macbeth by Shakespeare both external and internal. There is man vs. society, man vs. self, man vs. man, and even man vs. supernatural.