Lady Macbeth’s Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
The Tragedy of Macbeth written by William Shakespeare was the bloodiest tragedy ever written. William Shakespeare is the world’s pre-eminent dramatist and greatest writer in the
English language. Macbeth is a play about contradiction and ambition. Macbeth is a brave, capable noble driven to becoming King and will kill all and any that get in his way. Macbeth lacks the ambition and confidence needed to overthrow the King. He is married to and controlled by his wife, Lady Macbeth that sees his weaknesses and quickly takes action to help fulfill the prophecy. Lady Macbeth is one of the main characters throughout the play. She is deeply ambitious and lusts for power and position. She helps Macbeth commit
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Many people that go through traumatic events have difficulty adjusting and subsisting for a while but they don’t have PTSD right away. There are some components that will make you more probable to increase your risk of Post- traumatic
Stress Disorder. Military personnel and first responders are jobs that deal with traumatic events.
Having anxiety and depression also increases risk of the disorder.
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Symptoms of PTSD are being overwhelmed, guilt, trouble sleeping, reliving traumatic moments, and hallucinations. She has hallucinations throughout Macbeth. “ Out, damned spot!
Out, I say! One-Two-why then ‘tis time will do’t. Hell is murky.” She is trying to scrub blood off of her hands in a trans- conscious state of activity. Lady Macbeth’s conscious repeatedly haunts her and the blood is a reminder of the crime. Lady Macbeth also relives traumatic moments. “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (V,I, 36-41) .She is experiencing delayed guilt from the murder of Duncan, whom she first pushed Macbeth to kill.
There are treatments to help cope with PTSD. Primary treatment is using several types of physcotherapy. Cognitive, exposure, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing all
A common trait that war veterans unfortunately develop is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.) It is a mental disorder that is developed due to a traumatic event that causes psychological trauma. The symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks, nightmares, and sever anxiety
Reminders of the event includes places, activities, people, or thoughts. During this cluster the victim may withdraw from friends and or family, they will feel emotionally detached, and will lose interest in everyday activities. The third and final cluster is being on guard or hyper-aroused. During this cluster the victim could feel irritable or angry all of a sudden, they could have difficulty sleeping and or a lack of concentration, and being overly alert or easily startled. Victims with PTSD may pick up drug or alcohol habits or suicidal tendencies.
PTSD As a Result of Unnecessary Conflict Post Traumatic Stress Disorder occurs when an individual experiences a traumatic event, such as combat, assault or natural disasters. With PTSD, individuals feel threatened and stressed beyond the healthy reaction. The physical symptoms of the disorder include alcohol and drug dependence and the inability to maintain jobs and relationships. On the psychological spectrum, symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks and social avoidance.
The four common symptoms are re-experiencing, avoidance, arousal and reactivity, and cognition and mood. Re-experiencing symptoms include such things as flashbacks, bad dreams, and frightening thoughts. Avoidance symptoms could be staying away from places or things reminding the person of the traumatic event and also avoiding thoughts of the event as well. Arousal and reactivity symptoms include being easily startled, feeling tense or on edge, having difficulty sleeping, and having anger outbursts. Cognition and mood symptoms could include trouble remembering key information from the traumatic event, negative thoughts about oneself or in general, distorted feelings like guilt or blame, and loss of interest in enjoyable
Although there was never a diagnosis for the symptoms of PTSD, many countries dating back to 1678 have called it many different things but never connected it with a diagnosis as a whole. Up until the 1980s all of the symptoms were connected with war. They were all just called sad, or distraught over the sights of war. By the 1700s, physicians began to have clearer conceptualizations of the disorder which would eventually be known as PTSD. Dominique Jean Larry, a prominent French surgeon, described the disorder as having three stages: 1) “heightened excitement and imagination,” 2) “period of fever and prominent gastrointestinal symptoms,” and 3) “frustration and depression”.
Such as violence to another person. For instance, in a survey conducted on PTSD, many of the respondents believed that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) commonly has adverse effects on veterans as well as people who have been around war or battle. This information could allow them to make inferences about the possible effects that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has on a variety of people who have experienced war on the front lines along with the sidelines (Mattace). Moreover, it is said that a lot of war veterans exhibit many common symptoms and effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Some of these symptoms include nightmares and deja vu, as well as lucid dreams that may feel real, persistent negativity to one’s self along with others, and an increase in alertness to different noises, sounds, and pictures (“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)”).
There are two types of Psychotherapy, exposure and cognitive. Exposure is used to expose the person to their fear to help their body to mentally stabilize to the event while cognitive seeks to help individuals see the event in a more realistic way to make sense of the event and deal with it. There are also many prescription medications that can be prescribed to them to treat the high levels of anxiety, panic attacks and sleeping
At first, rather than putting all the blame on Macbeth she is proud of her involvement in the murder stating: “My hands are of your colour but I shame to wear a heart so white.” Initially this villainizes her as she is in control rather than being an obedient wife going against Jacobean stereotypes
Bryanna E. McCool Mrs. Dean British Literature 25 January 2018 Mental Illness in Shakespeare’s Macbeth The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, a play wrought with prophecies, deception, guilt, and death, brings light to the symptoms of mental illnesses and their effects on the human brain’s ability to reason, trust, and act in times of pressure. Both Macbeth and his lady are plagued by mental illness, and the effects of their illness only grow as the play evolves. Macbeth’s symptoms of schizophrenia and anxiety, as well as Lady Macbeth’s anxiety as well as hallucinations that eventually push her to suicide prove that not only can mental illness alter the way a person sees a situation, but it can also drive them to harm others and themselves.
No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red” (2.2. 60-63). Macbeth its prey of his guilt, he expresses his concern by taking notice of the blood on his hands that are proof of his crime and of his extreme guilt towards what he has done. At first, while Macbeth feels terribly guilty, his wife seems to have a clear conscience, despite her criminal acts and thoughts.
There are many people in the world that experience mental problems and therefore affecting their personality. Not everyone though is as bad as Macbeth when it comes to mental deterioration. Macbeth is a very self-centered man and it leads him to change the person he once was. Although it is not seen much in the beginning of Shakespeare's play “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, Macbeth’s mental state deteriorates as the play progresses, which can be seen when he is guilty of murdering King Duncan, being taunted by the ghost of Banquo, and his speech to the witches.
Lady Macbeth starts this off when she asks the spirits to .”Make thick my blood”. Stop up the access and passage to remorse..” (1,5,33-34).What she means by this is that she wants to poison her own soul to be insensitive and not feel remorse. She doesn't not want to feel remorse because of the deed that she's about to make. Macbeth had guilt, not like lady Macbeth.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder that follows the experience of a traumatic event. Of the 2.7 million American veterans that served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, at least 20% were diagnosed with PTSD (Veterans Statistics). PTSD affects everyone differently but the most common symptoms of PTSD include: reliving the event, increased anxiety, and avoiding any reminders of the trauma (Robinson,Segal, Smith). These symptoms negatively affect their life
Ari Mattes again gives a great point of view in her statement, “ We watch her cry as the wife and children of Macduff are executed, and note the look of regret in her eyes as Macbeth becomes increasingly mad” (Mattes 1). Showing from the eyes of Lady Macbeth we watch her wreath in pain of sorrow as she witnesses her husband go “mad” from all his actions. The character of Macbeth manifests into a completely different person in the eyes of film maker Justin Kurzel, as the character seems to be suffering from the pains of his tragic past, also known as post traumatic stress disorder. The memories of battles and violent times in the life of Macbeth, from war times to murders he has committed, puts a serious toll on his mental state. Macbeth can be seen dragging many bodies after the aftermath of war, and the killing of Duncan has shown that it has put a scar into the character of Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth shows signs of being not in touch with reality as she refers to the men she just kills as “sleeping and dead are but as pictures’’(mac.2,50-51). All her symptoms point to post traumatic stress disorder as the mental illness she suffers with. Professor William Copeland and duke university stated “Post-traumatic stress disorder is connected to a traumatic event or a series of tragic events in a person’s life” This implies a connection of post-traumatic stress disorder and lady Macbeth. During the end of the play lady Macbeth was under care from a doctor. The doctor told lady Macbeth “therein the patient must minister to herself” (mac.5,54-64).