...audience, but also each reader is able to relate to Poe’s character on at least one level. Similarly in Macbeth, a play written by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are illustrated as paralleling one another’s feelings of guilt and anguish because of their mutual crimes. These emotions are seen through Shakespeare’s symbolism of blood, sleeplessness and darkness. Macbeth’s guilt is most notably seen by his references to the blood of those he killed. Shakespeare uses this symbol to illustrate how the conscience weighs on Macbeth’s thoughts. When Macbeth imagines to see blood covering his hands, he cries, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” (2.2.57-59). The immense guilt, already beginning to trouble Macbeth’s conscience, is set off by the enormity of the deed he has committed against King Duncan. He feels as though nothing can wash away this crime, and goes on to say that the blood on his hands would even turn all the oceans red. Also, during the battle as Macbeth sees Macduff coming towards him in his castle, Macbeth yells, “Get back thee. My soul is too much charged / With the blood of thine already” (5.7.5-6). Macbeth knows what will happen when they fight, and he does not want to deal with any more of the guilt. The blood of Macduff’s family is hanging on Macbeth’s conscience, and the thought of suffering even more makes Macbeth nervous. Shakespeare skillfully uses blood to make it the easiest symbol to recognize...
Words: 1316 - Pages: 6
...Blood as a Correspondent to Guilt William Shakespeare has written many plays throughout his life. His words are eloquent, his characters are dramatic, and his style is treasured. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, blood is a reoccurring symbol. Shakespeare made the connection between blood and guilt; blood flows through our veins all around our body, it is a part of us. Even though guilt is not physically a part of us, we create it in ourselves. Blood is the physical representation of guilt as it symbolizes the irreversible effects of murder on the human mind. Guilt is the downfall of order and sanity. Even before murder, guilt consumes Macbeth’s mind causing him to hallucinate. Macbeth sees “gouts of blood” (II.1.46) on this “dagger of [his] mind” (II.1.38) as he is walking towards Duncan’s chamber to murder Duncan. Macbeth, at first, thinks the dagger is “a false creation, /Proceeding from [his] heat-oppressed brain” (II.1.38/39), but as he continues down the hall he then starts to feel it is not his sick brain, but it is the “bloody business” (II.1.49) of murder which causes this dagger to appear. This reveals that Macbeth is already emotionally unstable from Duncan’s murder even before one drop of blood is spilt from his body. Furthermore, Macbeth’s state of mind after the killing was so exceedingly erratic due to the guilt he felt that he forgets to frame the guards for the murder. Macbeth returns to Lady Macbeth, from Duncan’s room, to let her know that he has “done...
Words: 922 - Pages: 4
...because of all the guilt building up in the mind. With a conscience full of guilt, many people experience a significant amount of unrest in their life. William Shakespeare's Macbeth exposes to the readers how the life of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth changes after killing Duncan. Killing Duncan to obtain a greater status only causes more conflicts and unrest in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s lives. Lack of sleep in people's lives causes unrest and poor judgement as seen in Macbeth...
Words: 1168 - Pages: 5
...THEMES OF GUILT – MACBETH In the story of Macbeth, guilt is an important theme due to the fact that it unstiffens Macbeth’s ambition and coldness. His brutality is balanced by his guilt, a trait that enables the audience to identify with Macbeth throughout the play despite his oppressiveness. MACBETH AND LADY MACBETH: The two main characters who experience extreme feelings of guilt throughout the play are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth’s guilt is caused by the ghosts of those who he murdered and of the consequences that follow their murders. For example, Macbeth is visited by the ghost of Banquo, who he murdered to protect his secret. The apparition embodies Macbeth’s guilt and therefore causes Macbeth to nearly reveal the truth about King Duncan’s murder. Macbeth’s guilt prevents him from enjoying his gain of royalty but it does not stop him from committing more than 1 murders. This perhaps indicates a lack of morality, which is Macbeth’s key character flaw. Lady Macbeth on the overhand is driven crazy from the adrenaline of watching her husband commit such murders and is the force behind his actions. Unlike Macbeth’s...
Words: 1025 - Pages: 5
...Erma Bombeck once said “Guilt, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”The play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare suggests that Guilt will always catch up with you. No matter what you do or try to do, guilt is inevitable. Queen Mary was mean to her sister, but also jealous of her. The guilt and pressure overtook Queen Mary the 1st. She was under a lot of pressure to have a son during her reign. News spread that she was having a child and everyone hoped it was a boy. It turns out that she wasn’t pregnant at all. She was so keen on having a child she had a phantom pregnancy. Mary showed signs of being pregnant but was not actually pregnant with a child. Queen Mary the first was mean to her sister princess Elizabeth. She went to the extent of arresting her on charges that weren't true just to make sure Elizabeth did not pose a threat to her throne. Mary can relate...
Words: 1498 - Pages: 6
... Evolution of Evil in Macbeth In Macbeth, the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth undergo drastic changes as the play unfolds. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth regress from logical and human like people, into evil characters that would be found in a horror film. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth seem like two usual human beings, but after hearing about possibly becoming king and queen these characters turn to the dark side and resort to murdering the current king to take the thrown. Once the characters resort to murder, regret and guilt begin to consume their lives, resulting in death for both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Throughout the play Macbeth, the elements...
Words: 1621 - Pages: 7
...Macbeth envies Malcolm for being the one who was chosen to be Prince. Macbeth would have killed Malcolm if he didn’t ran off. Macbeth killed Duncan for choosing Malcolm and not him. One of the prophecies tell Macbeth “ Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff; Beware the thane of Fife / Dissmiss me. Enough” (4.1.81-82). This lead Macbeth to kill all of the Macduffs except Macduff who went to England to get Malcolm. In Macbeth, Shakesphere, uses envy to cause death and murder. Envy was the cause of death and murder in Macbeth. Envy can lead you to have your desires by making you into a person who is capable to have what they want, it can lead you to get what you want in a clean way. And it can also lead you to do bad choices without even...
Words: 1026 - Pages: 5
...William Shakespeare is a very famous English playwright and poet. Macbeth, also known as The Scottish Play, is written by Shakespeare and is about a Scottish soldier, Macbeth ,that is met by three witches and is told a strange prophecy about becoming king. It follows him and the dark ways he became king and how everything catches up to him in the end. His wife Lady Macbeth was the one to push him into doing the wrong thing. By the end of the play Lady Macbeth went crazy and killed herself. There was a pretty radical change in her that no one was expecting. When she first receives the letter from Macbeth that talks about the witches’ prophecy; she began to create a plan to kill King Duncan. She wanted her husband to become king as soon as...
Words: 410 - Pages: 2
...wealth, power, and everything earthly is the cause of all evil in this world.” Shakespeare perfectly illustrates this verse in the tragedy Macbeth. First performed in 1606, Macbeth magnifies the effects both mentally and physically of one who seeks power for there own sake. Macbeth, with assistance from his wife, Lady Macbeth, kills the beloved King Duncan after finding out from the Weird Sisters that he would be king. After the murder, Macbeth starts slowly losing his mind leading to him seeing apparitions and hearing voices. These occurrences lead him to become paranoid causing him to kill off his closest friend Banquo and Macduff’s family. Feeling helpless and alone, not even trusting his own...
Words: 805 - Pages: 4
...Key ideas in Macbeth Macbeth is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is mainly set in Scotland and the play dramatizes the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for their own sake. Macbeth explores many themes and ideas of the olden where people had many supernatural beliefs (e.g. withes) and other beliefs such as the kings’ power was believed to be directly given by god and therefore monarchs were answerable only to god. An important idea expressed in Macbeth is the guilt which is felt by few of the characters in the play, prominently being featured on Macbeth himself. Macbeth’s guilt is shown immediately after killing Duncan, in which Macbeth's senses are heightened and he is paranoid about being caught, which is why he jumps at every noise, 'How is't with me, when every noise appals me?'(Act 2, scene II), looking at his bloody hands, He wishes that he could take away his eyes that witnessed his crime. This quote and Duncan's blood is symbolic of Macbeth's guilt, in which Macbeth uses a metaphor, or indirect comparison, to compare his guilt for killing Duncan to blood on his hands. Another scene in the play where guilt is evident is when Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking and seems to be washing her hands, saying 'Out, damned spot! Out, I say!’(Act V scene I). These words by her clearly show her guilt coming to the surface as she sleeps and dreams. In this state, she attempts to clean...
Words: 607 - Pages: 3
...countless literary works throughout history, and Shakespeare is no stranger to the concept. From bloody daggers to bloody hands, William Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth expresses...
Words: 995 - Pages: 4
...directly or indirectly. One famous and rather memorable example of a mental disease takes place in a Shakespearean play, Macbeth; which is the story of a loyal soldier who falls into the depths of darkness and despair as he seeks the crown while disregarding any ramification (Bevington). Early in the play, Macbeth’s mental state is a commonplace. He seems to be content with himself. But, as the story progresses so does his mental health. He turns into an unrecognizable man whose guilt causes him to go insane. Belatedly, the witches, his wife, his hallucinations, and his tragic flaw cause Macbeth’s descent into madness. The opening of the play introduces supernatural...
Words: 1470 - Pages: 6
...Macbeth Literary Essay Submitted By: Zachary McGregor May 1st, 2012 I believe that Macbeth is fully responsible for his own destiny because whether or not it was fated, he still chose to do everything he did. We obviously know that Macbeth made some pretty bad decisions over the course of the play. He should be held responsible and forced to pay the consequences of his actions for the following reasons. We know that Macbeth still had the choice of whether or not to murder Duncan, although he was encouraged by the witches’ prophesies and Lady Macbeth he didn’t really have to go through with the murder. We also know that the crimes Macbeth commits are becoming increasingly sinister and evil, as he continues to do these terrible deeds it becomes easier and easier for him to commit them. Finally, Macbeth acknowledges his guilt for the crimes he commits and is therefore fully responsible for his actions. It seems that the witches’ predictions insinuate Macbeth’s desire to become king, however, no one actually forces him to kill Duncan. Even though Macbeth’s decision was most certainly influenced by the witches’ prophesies and Lady Macbeth, he still made the final choice regarding the murder of Duncan which is wrong. Macbeth’s ambition causes him to question his loyalty to the king after hearing the witches’ prophesies. “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my shingle state of man that...
Words: 1575 - Pages: 7
...people’s daily lives is inevitable, sleep is the one thing that one can be sure about. From starting a day off by rising from sleep to going back to sleep as night falls, this “constant” is true for all. Another person who Macbeth, a thane, who through his accomplishments on the battlefield was slowly inching up the social ladder. Then, when the greed for power begins to eat him and the bodies start piling up things beginbegan to change for the characters. When the delicate balance of sleep is disrupted, dire consequences come about as they do in Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Through the characters’ reactions to the severe deprivation of sleep,...
Words: 1140 - Pages: 5
...Macbeth analysis “Macbeth” is a tragedy and was written by William Shakespeare. It was originally written as a play; believed to have been written between 1599 and 1606. Macbeth is the easiest of all of Shakespeare’s plays to follow because the play only has one plot and is constructed in a way that almost everything that happens, refers to the main story. The play takes place mostly in a castle in medieval Scotland. In the tragedy we follow King Duncan’s army-general, Macbeth’s rise to power and his downfall after this, and the wife, Lady Macbeth, when she taunts him to do the things she wants him to do in order to kill King Duncan. But how much guilt can one take before going insane? When will one be too crazy for their subjects to obey? And how does acting against your morals affect one in the long run? The most important characters in the play are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth but the three witches, “The Weird Sisters”, plays a big part too. Macbeth is the main character. The first impression we get of him is, that he is a brave and capable warrior. We get this impression because of the first place in the play, that we meet Macbeth is in the captain’s account of the battlefield. However, this impression changes when he meets the 3 witches, and they tell him, that he is to be king. At this point, we realise that he is a lot more than just brave. His courage is combined with his ambition and tendency to doubt himself. When he is told, that he is to kill the king, he experiences...
Words: 976 - Pages: 4
