How Illusions and Guilt Can Lead to Downfall
In the play The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare developed the idea that the way people perceive themselves depend on what they are told about themselves and what their actions may lead to, but the reality may be completely different from what they think. The reason that one’s identity may rely on illusion is because a human relies on what others see and think of them. The characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth showed that blood on their hands made them feel guilty because even though they were willing to do whatever they had to to get to the crown, guilt still weighed them down. Shakespeare also showed through his characters that the way one reacts to a prophecy alter their personality for
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Right from the beginning the witches had messed with Macbeth “in riddles and affairs of death” (III.v.4) that he may have not fully understood. Everything that Macbeth had thought was real was usually just an illusion. In the scene after Macbeth killed King Duncan, it is revealed that he also killed the servants so that MacDuff and Ross thought that the servants murdered him. Not only did Macbeth think that what he was told was real, he also created illusions for other people. He was told that “fair was foul, [and] foul was fair,” so his whole system of beliefs was changed. In one of the final scenes before Macbeth's death, he believed that MacDuff’s army could not attack his castle because it was too strong for them. His arrogance was a main problem in Macbeth's belief system as well. His arrogance came from the witches who planted false prophecies into his mind. The witches knew that Macbeth would be defeated and never be the King because he was to be be defeated by MacDuff. The witches planted the thought that Macbeth could not be defeated “man born of woman” (V.iii.7) Macbeth’s reality was altered by an illusion that the witches created for