Conscience And Guilt In Macbeth

Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” is about a man named Macbeth who is an ambitious person, will commit atrocious acts to achieve his desires. At the end of the play, Malcolm expresses Macbeth and lady Macbeth as “this dead butcher and his fiend like queen”. Lady Macbeth’s evil is restricted to the first murder, but on the other hand, Macbeth who starts off as a noble hero, goes from one ruthless killing to the next. Even though Macbeth has made immoral decisions, you still need to consider the fact that the audience has a clear understanding of both Macbeth and lady Macbeth’s conscience and guilt from the murders afterwards. Therefore, since they have conscience and experience guilt, it is difficult to say they deserved this epitaph.

When Macbeth

This shows that Macbeth is thoughtful and that he knows that he should be protecting the king, not murdering him in his house. Shakespeare uses soliloquies to indicate to the audience the inner struggles of Macbeth and what his thoughts and feelings are, which reveal that he is feeling indecisive and nervous. The witches play a major part in this, as they were the ones who were pulling the strings and planted the seeds into Macbeth’s mind. They tempt him with prophecies of him being the new “Thane of Cawdor” and how he will “shalt be king hereafter”. By playing on Macbeth’s deepest ambition, it brought forth thoughts of evil and as a result, it leads Macbeth down a violent path. Lady Macbeth also has a part to play as she is the driving force, who plotted and urged Macbeth into committing the hideous act. Lady Macbeth attacked qualities of Macbeth’s manhood, telling him when he commits the murder then he “[is] a man”. Shakespeare suggests that Macbeth lacks the strength of character, but through manipulation of his ambitions, he gains the strength to carry out the act. Straight after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth is shaken by what he has committed and says will all “great Neptune’s ocean, wash this blood/clean from my hands”, reveals that he is now regretting his decision and is making an attempt to get rid of the evidence. As a result, Macbeth is considerate about his

Blood relates to the idea of guilt and it is emphasised clearly in Act 5 scene 1 where lady Macbeth appears to be bothered by the “blood on her hands” while she screams “out, damned spot!”. This demonstrates that lady Macbeth is distressed by her hallucinations of blood and is also beginning to experience guilt because not even “all the perfumes of Arabia” will wash away her sin. Lady Macbeth also experiences fear when she says “what’s done cannot be undone”, demonstrating that Lady Macbeth realises it is too late to regret her actions. Therefore, Lady Macbeth is not entirely fiendish as the audience gets to see Lady Macbeth’s remorse and what she is truly like as she confesses her feelings from deep