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Guilty Pleasures In Macbeth

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‘Guilty Pleasures’ in William Shakespeare’s
Macbeth

There are many different kinds of guilt. The various kinds of guilty feelings that can be perceived as either when someone steals a chocolate bar, when someone commits a crime that was not meant to happen, or even by “accidentally” letting go of a piece of gum wrapper on the ground. Guilt varies with the individual who is experiencing it. The opposite of guilt is innocence, and provides a feeling which is very noticeable; unlike guilt. Innocence is the opposite of what most characters in William Shakespeare's Macbeth feel. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth and Macduff all demonstrated a different, and very distinct kind of guilt; each of them having their own consequences. …show more content…

Unlike Lady Macbeth, Macbeth felt guilty before he murdered King Duncan. Macbeth begins to have second thoughts about whether he wants to go on and murder King Duncan. On his way to murder King Duncan, Macbeth has the vision of the bloody dagger leading the way. While he realizes what he is about to do, he says “Is this a dagger which i see before me, the handle toward my hand”(II, I, 40-41). Macbeth realized that he had to kill King Duncan, but when he sees the dagger, he is imagining what it would feel to actually carry out the plan. Macbeth is frightened by this sight, however it did bring him back to reality, and the reality he wanted was to fulfill his plan. In comparison to Lady Macbeth, Macbeth felt guilty after killing Duncan. He said “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” ( II, II, 77-80 ). What he means by this is that there is not enough water in all the sea to clean his hands from the blood of Duncan, but it would turn the water red. In the end, Macbeth stopped showing how he felt, and ignored it. He believed that everything he did was the right thing, and was not going to let anyone stop him from doing what he

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