Causes Of Guilt In Macbeth

Guilt and Consequences Essay

Guilt is caused when someone feels as though the have done something against their morals, this causes them to feel remorse and at often times cause their mind to become unsteady. In Macbeth, Macbeth and his wife experience guilt throughout the play. Guilt has negative toll on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s mental state, causing anxiety, hallucinations and insomnia.

Anxiety comes over Macbeth after he kills king Duncan to gain power. After Macbeth has performed the deed he then feels remorse.”I’ll go no more:/ I am afraid to think what I have done;/ Look on't again I dare not.”(2.2.55-57). As Lady Macbeth reassures him he frantically scrubs his hands trying to remove the blood from them, ”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. (2.2.64-67). Macbeth feels as that nothing can cleanse him from this horrible deed that he has just performed.

Macbeth feels threatened by Banquo’s heir, because

The gentlewoman talks to the doctor Lady Macbeth’s strange actions, at the start of act five. “Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.”(5.1.5-8). Lady Macbeth is finally showing the guilt that she feels for killing an innocent man, this has caused Lady Macbeth to sleepwalk and reveal things in her sleep.Sine Lady Macbeth’s mind is ill the Doctor has ordered the Gentlewoman to stay by her side and to rid her from all annoyances. Later Macbeth is informed that his wife has died, it is not revealed how she died but it be concluded that the guilt soon became for her mind to handle and she ended up taking her own