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Guilt And Punishment In Macbeth

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In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, the character of Macbeth is guilty of his past and the actions that he has caused, leading to lots of death and gruesome violent murders. In the Scottish play, Macbeth is overcome with negative energy, dark gruesome thoughts, and violent actions. As the play goes on the audience will notice that as time goes on, Macbeth becomes terrified for his life as his actions continue. In Act 2, Scene 2, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are hosting king duncan for dinner, they are having a good time as they are drinking, singing, and dancing. All is great until Macbeth violently stabs and kills King Duncan to start his reign of terror. Macbeth cries “Whence is that knocking? How is't with me, when every noise appalls …show more content…

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.” (Shakespeare.2.2.56-62). Macbeth instantly regrets killing King Duncan, yet panics and begins to understand that if he gets caught he will get killed, He begins to panic about the dagger and says that the blood is forever stained on his hands, which shows that he is panicking and worried about what he has done, yet knows that he must keep going and cannot let anybody find out about what he has done, as he lets his mind continue to take over as the more death he causes, the more guilty he begins to feel. In the Scottish play, “The Tragedy of Macbeth'' Macbeth is constantly looking over his shoulder for anybody who could pose as a threat to him, he constantly alerts his servants to engage in violent murders just so he can prove a point, yet he doesn't notice the danger and harm he causes because the violence has taken over his mind. This now leads him to order the murder of Macduff and his family. He continuously cries that “The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to the edge o' the sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his …show more content…

But no more sights. — Where are these gentlemen? Come, bring me where they are.” (Shakespeare.4.1.160-172). He is ordering his servants to go murder an innocent wife and her darling children because their dad ran away from them and didn't come to a dinner party, Leaving him to become guilty and worried that the bloodshed won't stop. This shows that Macbeth is guilty and is going to continue to murder people that are a threat to him because he refuses to be overthrown from the kingdom. Macbeth is guilty of his actions and understands that he will get murdered for his actions, this utimentally ends up in him becoming a gruesomely violent, and unholy ruler who orders murders towards anybody who shows a threat to him to keep him safe, yet makes him feel worse every time showing the reader that he's guilty of his

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Nonetheless, guilt ultimately drives the two to insanity. On the other hand, Macbeth and Joe are aware that their guilt extends beyond the literal "blood" on their "hand[s]" and the metaphorical "blood" on their souls is permanent. For example, Macbeth asks, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?" This dramatic dialogue and hyperbole suggest that they cannot avoid the consequences of their actions. Furthermore, the blood motif represents Macbeth's guilt and the belief that his actions will forever haunt him.

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Macbeth yells in despair, “[Knocking within] / Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst” (2.2.93-94). Macbeth is utterly guilty and remorseful of having killed Duncan to the point of paranoia. He shouts aloud even though he must be wary of not revealing his crime. Macbeth also requests the individual knocking to wake Duncan up from his forever slumber as a last resort to revoke his crime so he can rid himself of

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“A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight”, once again it is noticed that Lady Macbeth takes charge and judges him on his weakness in doing the deed and is again pressuring him to lose sight of what his respectful beliefs are showing her continuous lack of

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Macbeth is startled when he sees a ghost at banqou’s spot at the table. He had just finished making a toast to him, and the guilt is coming for him

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Throughout the play, three recurring types of imagery stand out: blood imagery, sleep imagery, and hallucination imagery. After Macbeth kills Duncan, he asks Lady Macbeth, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?”(II. 2, 60–62). As Macbeth gazes at his hand, soaked in blood, he is haunted by the weight of his guilt, realizing that water cannot erase the stain of his crime. Neptune's vast ocean mirrors Macbeth's remorse for King Duncan as Macbeth's guilt will continue to consume him, resisting any attempts to wash it away.

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Macbeth recognizes the rapid and drastic downfall of his life and by making the comparison to a poor player that is no longer heard from, he thinks that life is meaningless and lacks purpose. Understanding how his deception leads to destruction, his perspective on life shifts to a cynical view. His existence is merely a performance and his inability to continue the honorable act illustrates Macbeth’s undoing of his former nobility. As his destructive nature changes his attitude, his carelessness will continue to spike as he reaches the end of his life. Shakespeare uses Macbeth to give attention to the reckless attitude that results from allowing deception to

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This evidence paints an auditory imagery of the sound of knocking. The knocking is a reference to the imaginary knockings heard by Macbeth after Duncan is killed. Thus, the knocking symbolises the guilty conscience of Lady Macbeth. Previously, she was not able to hear the knockings, but now she can, which emphasises how the impact of guilt has started to sink into her brain to the extent where she has

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Lady Macbeth is beginning to show signs of immense guilt. “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (5,1,35). Lady Macbeth looks down at her hands and realizes they are covered in blood. This can be both literally and figuratively due to her hectoring Macbeth about his masculinity and manhood by pressuring him into the murder of Duncan and finally realizing that all the blood is on her hands.

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5-7). In this instance, Macbeth shows that he can feel guilt, and he exhibits this by demonstrating that he does not desire to end the life of a man whose family was already victimized at his hands. Guilt is the one thing throughout the entire play that stops Macbeth dead in his tracks and causes him to take a moment to consider his present and future courses of action. Although Macbeth was lead to commit murder by the witches’ manipulative predictions of the future, he is the one who ultimately makes the choices that prove that he is in control of his actions, even when his actions cause him to be filled with

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In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth is shown to be a conflicted character who goes through inner turmoil due to cravance for more power; his decision to kill King Duncan is developed by the use of the themes of murder, anxiety, and determination. The theme of murder is portrayed by the use of diction and sentence structure. In the lines 13-15, Macbeth states, “ I see thee still/ And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood/ Which was not so before.”

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His easily impressionable nature causes him to not form his own thoughts, but rather listen to the words of Lady Macbeth and the three witches. At the point of this play the audience can note the change in Macbeth's character. Macbeth's first murder was a trying experience for him, however after the first murder; killing seemed to be the only solution to maintain his reign of the people of Scotland. Through this ambition Macbeth is able to organize these murders without a drop of remorse. This lack of remorse is his shrill that pushes him to continue with his evil conspiracies.

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Throughout Macbeth by William Shakespeare, readers become aware of the significant impact that results from characters obtaining ruthlessness, and how it undoubtedly affects the outcome of the play. Macbeth believes he needs to be involved in a massive amount of murders as he is continuously blindsided by his ruthlessness leading him to disrupt “the harmony in the Scottish state”(Berger 1). He has numerous self doubts throughout the novel which greatly affect his mental status causing him to become aware of the negative change he has made in his life. Macbeth becomes self-absorbed with pursual towards attaining the crown as he does not question the effect it will have on society. William Shakespeare purposefully uses acts of violence, and “the play shows how evil naturally destroys itself--or else, in a slightly different version, it shows how divine providence again and again offers Macbeth chances to reject temptation, to repent, to regain what one writer calls his "Christian self esteem"(Beger 1).

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This debate between the pity found in Macbeth’s mental state and the fear he evokes through his actions continues as Macbeth becomes a vicious tyrant. Not only does he kill off more of those around him, including the family of MacDuff, all for the sake of proving his power over those around him, but he rains famine and tragedy across the land. Macbeth’s inhumane actions easily draw fear from the audience as it expresses how uncontrollable and deranged, he has become; Macbeth is truly far from the hero first introduced. Extensively Macbeth begins to trust fewer and fewer individuals, he becomes more paranoid about the things going on around him. Specifically he can’t sleep and fears loosing his power.

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Guilt is a feeling that consumes a person and follows them around. This feeling usually happens when one has committed an offence, crime, violation or wrong act. It is the feeling of responsibility for this poor action that has been committed. The author of Macbeth, William Shakespeare, has wrote plays that capture a varying range of emotions that affect many walks of life. In this play, guilt is one of the most significant theme throughout, being displayed countless times.

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Lady Macbeth is power hungry for the throne and she will do anything to achieve her goal. Her pleasure of having the thought of killing Duncan is revealed. These murderous thoughts that run through her mind shows how desperate she is to acquire power. Although it is the beginning of the play, her dark ambitions sets a dark tone for her character in the play. This coincidentally adds to the assurance of Macbeth’s prophecy which is that Macbeth will become king, but King Duncan is still alive.

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