Why Is Guilt Important In Macbeth

(2.2. 86 - 88 ). Lady Macbeth explains to Macbeth about how easy it is to just wash away the blood, and everything will go away. However, Lady Macbeth washing her hands shows that she is washing away the guilt she has at that moment for killing King Duncan. However, as the play continues, the hallucinations and Lady Macbeth’s guilty conscience catches up to her. Later in the play Shakespeare has Lady Macbeth sleepwalking and hallucinating about all the murders Macbeth

Blood is a perversion of nature, when there is blood, there is murder. After Macbeth murders Duncan, Macbeth has blood on his hands. There is physical blood on Macbeth’s hands which he can wash off with water. But, Macbeth goes on to say, “Will all great Neptune’s oceans wash this blood clean from my hand?” (Shakespeare 2.2.58-59), showing there is guilt setting into his mind already and he cannot wash it from his now stained hands. No amount of water in the world would be able to ever wash away the blood that has been spilled on Macbeth’s conscience. Nothing can ever wash away the guilt of killing Duncan (Blood Symbolism in Macbeth by William Shakespeare). Even after Macbeth realizes that he cannot escape the guilt of killing Duncan, he continues, even to go on killing his best friend Banquo. Instead of killing Banquo himself, Macbeth has people go out and kill him. After Banquo is killed by murderers, Macbeth sees his ghost appear at dinner. Macbeth starts screaming at Banquo however no one else can see him. Macbeth sees Banquo and feels the guilt weighing down on his conscience. Macbeth becomes scared of Banquo. “It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood” (Shakespeare 3.4.22). The combination of the fear and insanity all adds to his guilt. “All causes shall give way. I am in blood. Stepp’d in so far that, should

Whatever macbeth does, does not affect him mentally because mentally he is dead. Mentally both macbeth and lady macbeth are affected differently, lady macbeth was very strong in evading guilt in the beginning but, now she is overthinking it. Now lady macbeth made guilt mentally surround her; guilt is now overwhelming her and so she commits suicide getting rid of her troubles. Mentally Lady macbeth was not skilled in the field of controlling her emotions.

After the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth looks at his hands and sees how they are covered in his king’s blood, to which he responds, “This is a sorry sight” (2.2.28). Macbeth worries that all the water in the world can not wash the blood off his hands. The blood can be seen as Macbeth’s ambitions to become king as the witches prophecies claimed, in which he can not drive away. After Lady Macbeth plants the bloody daggers on the chamberlains she states, “ A little water clears us of this deed” (2.2.65). Lady Macbeth is naive, and believes in killing Duncan that they have satisfied their ambitions, and she can wash away her guilt. She is unaware that her husband’s hunger for a high status will only increase along with the

She can no longer keep it to herself that she inattentively exclaims to a gentle woman “Here is the smell of the blood still. All perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (V.i.54-56). Even though she does not betray Banquo and Macduff, she feels at fault- so much so that her mind makes her believe that the smell of their blood is on her. After Macbeth kills Duncan, he immediately feels remorse and fear take over him.

Here, Lady Macbeth refers back to the murder of Duncan, and ironically says a statement similar to what Macbeth said when he was in his guilt-filled stupor. She shows immense weakness and desperateness, as she is trying to eliminate the “blood” from her hands, which also symbolize the guilt that she is unable to wash off. With Duncan’s murder, the comparison between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth show how powerful the mental state can be on the characters. The death of Banquo did not help matters either. Macbeth began to view a ghostly image of Banquo after his death, in which caused him to panic and go insane.

Theme of Guilt in Macbeth Guilt is something everyone deals with every now and then. In Macbeth, guilt is brought to the audience in many ways, through many different characters. Sometimes even causing more harm than it was intended to. In the story of “Macbeth”, in the beginning the main character Macbeth deals with guilt by ignoring it and acting like it was okay. As time progresses, the guilt started to build up on him, causing him to go insane.

Because of Macbeth's guilt of killing his King, Macbeth slowly became insane which eventually lead to his downfall emphasizing the power of guilt that holds Macbeth’s fate.

Blood, specifically Duncan’s blood, appears as another symbol of Macbeth’s remorse. He believes that that there is enough blood on his hands to turn an entire sea red. Macbeth states, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather / the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” (II.ii.77-81).

This shows guilt can eat away at someone physically and emotionally, and that it can be difficult to control or even overcome. Lady Macbeth also experiences her own mental struggles due to guilt. This is displayed in act five scene one when Lady Macbeth

At first, guilt starts to overcome Macbeth when he kills Duncan. When Macbeth approaches his wife after killing Duncan it is apparent to the readers that he starts to feel ashamed of what he has just done. Macbeth is shown to be as someone who is fearless and nothing will get in the way of what he wants to achieve, but as soon as the ambition of him becoming king starts taking over and he acts upon his intentions, the guilt as well slowly starts taking over. As it states in the play; “I’ll go no more: I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on’t again I dare not” (Act II Scene II Line 65-67). Macbeth says this to his wife after she tells him to put the daggers back at the place of the murder, but he refuses saying that he cannot go back and it scares him to look at what he has done. We get to see more of Macbeth’s character through this, how he is unable to witness what he has just done because he cannot believe how cruel he has become in to getting what he wants. In the beginning of the book when he slays the traitor he does not feel guilty about it but feels proud because he knows he did

He has no guilt whatsoever and even states that he's in too deep that there is no point in turning back now; he should continue killing until he gets what he wants: ¨I am in blood/ Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er¨ (3.3). Robert Fallon, author of A Theatergoer's Guide to Shakespeare's Themes, agrees that Macbeth has changed immensely throughout the play stating that “He is transformed from an initially admirable figure into a monster¨ (184). Fallon further states that “Macbeth is seen initially as a noble figure, loyal to King Duncan” and even after Macbeth has murdered Duncan “he suffers ... from the distress of guilt”

Furthermore, during her sleepwalking, Lady Macbeth will “take forth paper,/ fold it, write upon ’t, read it, afterwards seal it” and then finally goes back to sleep (V, i, 6-7). This relates back to the first time she read Macbeth’s letter about becoming King. The guilt in her mind allows her to visualise the letter that gave her the idea to commit murder in the first place. The guilt first starts to accumulate at this time; even before she knows it. In comparison to Lady Macbeth being paranoid, the problem that the narrator has with the old man all began with his paranoia.

Once Macbeth finds out that he has to accomplish the goal of killing Duncan he starts to tell Lady Macbeth “we will proceed no further in this business” (I.VII.31). One of the significant in the play was blood. It represents the murder of murder. He was hesitant to commit this crime; Macbeth makes a choice to kill Duncan. Macbeth has now seen that “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this

Throughout the play it is primarily Macbeth being rocked by guilt, but he is not the sole bearer as Lady Macbeth is eventually overwhelmed by it as well. While sleepwalking she exclaims, “Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. Look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave” (V.i.49-51). Lady Macbeth has been suppressing her guilt so long that it is showing unconsciously. She is washing the blood from her hands, unable to get her conscious clean.