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Guilt In Macbeth

Decent Essays

In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth guilt and how to properly deal with it is a major theme. In regards to guilt Shakespeare is telling us that if we don’t deal with guilt in the right way it will lead us to extreme problems. This is proven by Lady Macbeths deteriorating mental state in the last few acts of the play, Macbeth becoming devoid of emotion by the end of the play, and how MacDuff deals with his family’s death. At the start of the play lady Macbeth does not seem to feel any remorse for Duncan’s murder and actually encourages her husband to commit the murder when he is reluctant to go through with the plot. She even chastises her husband for regretting the murder saying to him “a foolish thought to say a sorry sight” (II. ii. 22) after …show more content…

No, this my hand will rather/ the multitudinous seas incarnadine, / making the green one red.” (II. ii. 60-63) which is basically him saying that he will never be able to wash his hands of this deed and it will haunt him forever. Now in the third act Macbeth has Banquo assassinated because of the witches’ prophecy and it weighs heavily on his conscience and he even hallucinates the dead Banquo at the banquet he is hosting. In act four after he goes back to see the witches is when he really changes and starts killing out of spite and not caring. He even decides to kill Macduff’s family simply because he could. He also becomes extremely over confident and sure of himself due to the witches prophecies and he begins to devalue life not even mourning his wife when she dies saying “she should have died hereafter; / there would have been a time for such a word.” (V. v. 17-18). In conclusion if Macbeth had kind of controlled his guilt and felt it but not let it get to him too much then he might not have become so desensitized to guilt and death. Contrary to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, MacDuff handles his guilt the

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