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How Is Lady Macbeth's Guilt

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In the play, “Macbeth”, a certain theme comes into play: Guilt. This particular theme centers around the guilty conscience of Macbeth and his wife when they decided to kill the King of Scotland. Given the fact that Macbeth did indeed kill King Duncan himself, most people would pronounce him guilty. What they don’t realize is that Lady Macbeth came up with the plan to kill King Duncan, provoked her husband into committing murder by stripping him of his masculinity, and even showed indifference when the death of the king had already occurred. Because she conjured up the plan to kill King Duncan, provoked her husband into committing murder, and was even unfeeling after killing a beloved king, she is the one held responsible for the murder of the King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth starts to berate her husband in scene 7 of act 1 after he tells her about his hesitation concerning the murder of the King. Lady Macbeth says “When you durst do it, then you were a man; / And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more than man.” Instead of trying to deter her husband from committing murder, she instead provoked him to kill King Duncan by trying to strip him of his masculinity. …show more content…

Lady Macbeth says that she “Will I with wine and wassail so convince / That memory, the wander of the brain, / Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason / A limbeck only: When in swinish sleep / Their drenched natures lie as in a death, / What cannot you and I perform upon / The unguarded Duncan?” After Lady Macbeth poisons the guards at King Duncan’s door, Macbeth is to kill Duncan while the guards are unconscious. The plan afterwards is to feign ignorance and smear blood on the guards to make them look guilty. The simple fact that Lady Macbeth is able to plan a murder so easily is not only concerning, but it also shows how conniving she truly

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Lady Macbeth purposes the idea that they should have a dinner party with King Duncan and his two chamberlains. Next, all three of the guests will be served many alcoholic drinks until they become severally drunken. The plan is to frame the guards with the death of King Duncan by placing the murder weapon in their proximity. Macbeth will sneak into the room of the sleeping King Duncan and slay him. Then, he’ll be sure to lay the dagger covered in blood near or in the hands of one of the guards to make it seem as if they killed the king while they were intoxicated.

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642 Words | 3 Pages

Lady Macbeth makes a plan to murder King Duncan when he comes to their home, which they did and framed the guards: LADY MACBETH.When Duncan is asleep-/ Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey/ Soundly invite him-his two chamberlains/ Will I with wine and wassel so convince,/ That memory, the wanderer of the brain,/ Shall be a fume, and the receipt of the reason/ A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep/ Their drenched natures what not put upon/ His spongy officers who shall bear the guilt/ Of our great quell? 1.

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1145 Words | 5 Pages

This then caused her to not let anything get in her way of accomplishing this goal of hers. Shakespeare demonstrates this idea by writing “Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear And chastise with the valor of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round” (Act 1, Scene 7). By saying this, he makes it clear that Lady Macbeth was scared that her husband would not be able to have to gets to do what it takes to help her achieve the role of queen so she is going to try to convince him to do some extreme things to make the prophecy come true. It can be seen that the reason behind Macbeth carrying out the murder are not his reasosns but instead the reasons that Lady Macbeth tells him. Another way that Shakespeare reveals Lady Macbeth’s greed is by giving her the dialogue “Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor, Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter, Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant.”

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549 Words | 3 Pages

Guilt also appears on lady macbeth as well. Lady macbeth is guilty because of the death of duncan. When lady macbeth was sleepwalking and went to wash her hands and in her mind she said she couldn't get the blood off of her hands. However some might say the witches might have been the reason for her death Another possible way of the deaths of macbeth and lady macbeth could be the witches. The witches gave macbeth prophecies.

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567 Words | 3 Pages

The intent to murder Duncan is aided by the declarations of the witches as well as the consistent nagging of Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is experiencing guilt over what he is about to do, and his mind is torn with thoughts of such an evil action. Macbeth states, “A dagger of the mind, a

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647 Words | 3 Pages

At the beginning of Shakespeare's play, Lady Macbeth looks like a strong, unshakable woman, whose thirst for power induces her to make pacts with the occult forces, but at the the end, she will be forced to make terms with her inner consciousness. In fact, it will be very interesting to analyze the way in which Lady Macbeth expresses the sense of guilt for her bad actions, and for her husband's bad actions. It would not be wrong to say that Lady Macbeth, from the point of view of her "Ego", she keeps faith to her vile intentions, but that she ( in her inner consciousness - her "Id") has been able to understand the wickedness of her actions. In fact, she has been taken by a slight motion of reluctance for her bad attitude, before that she spurs Macbeth to murder Duncan in his sleep "... Had he not resembled/

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168 Words | 1 Pages

Lady Macbeth is filled with such regret and feels overwhelmed with shame from the death of Duncan, to the point where she begins sleep walking and speaking of the evil things her and her husband have done. One of things Lady Macbeth mutters in her sleep is that she is unable to remove Duncan’s blood from her murderous hands and that the smell has become so strong that it will be difficult to remove. Her statement makes it clear how deep her regret is and that she has accepted the fact that there is no going back. It’s ironic that Lady Macbeth is the one that is overwhelmed when she is the one that pushed her husband kill their king, when prior to murder Lady Macbeth accuses her husband of cowardice. It’s obvious that Lady Macbeth’s character

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175 Words | 1 Pages

In addition, she comes up with the plot to kill king Duncan. (Act 1: Scene 7 : Lines 75-77). Lady Macbeth will get the two guards drunk and drugging their drinks so the guards will be unconscious while Duncan is sleeping which will lead King Duncan to be endangered. She will blame the guards for the murder so no one will suspect it 's them

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696 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the play, Macbeth is viewed with hostility in regard to his unscrupulous actions. However, the fact that it was Lady Macbeth who was the mastermind behind king Duncan’s death is often

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1878 Words | 8 Pages

Lady Macbeth tries to mask her guilt by covering up for her husband, but eventually comes to grips with her own instability. In Macbeth, Shakespeare asserts that power drives the title character and his wife to insanity, particularly after their conspiracy to kill Duncan. For starters, prior to killing Duncan, Macbeth imagines the likely consequences of his future actions and whether or not they signal his destiny. At the beginning

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937 Words | 4 Pages

Previous to her first plotting of evil, Lady Macbeth is seen as a morally righteous and sane person who simply has a well off life with her husband. However, she turns completely opposite from the greed she acquires within herself wanting her husband to become king. A now selfish and greed hungry Lady Macbeth, plans and succeeds in the murder of Duncan, the first person in the way of Macbeth’s thrown. The act of taking someone’s life proves further all of her moral

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956 Words | 4 Pages

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth commits these murders against their allies so that the could be happy and gain power, but in the end, they had psychologically deteriorated and lost everything they had and once held dear to

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1049 Words | 5 Pages

After reading the letter from Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is bloodthirsty and obsessed with planning the murder of Duncan. She immediately starts plotting, with no second thoughts about the severity of what she is doing. This desire for bloodshed is fueled by how “she craves power,” and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that power (Thompson 8). It is

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780 Words | 4 Pages

Moreover, this realization leads Lady Macbeth to think about murdering King Duncan for her and Macbeth to gain power. In addition to Lady Macbeth’s cruel character, she reveals her desirous thoughts towards the crown. Lady Macbeth continues her speech and mentions her unquenching thirst to take Duncan’s power. “Make thick my blood. Stop the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace with the effect and it!”

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This perversion of one of the most sacred acts of motherhood enhances the horror of the length she would cross to achieve her goal. However, it also implies that considering Lady Macbeth as merely a brutal, malicious woman stirring her husband to slaughter a poor old king- is a misevaluation and understatement of this character. In Defense of Lady Macbeth An attempt to investigate who actually planned the murder of Duncan, can be referred to the findings of A. C. Bradley in the essay, “When Was the Murder of Duncan First Plotted”, in his Shakespearean Tragedy: A good many readers probably think that, when Macbeth first met the Witches, he was perfectly innocent; but a much larger number would say that he had already harboured a vaguely guilty ambition, though he had not faced the idea of murder.

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