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Lady Macbeth Power Essay

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Isabella Ragone Mrs. Sheehan English II H- Green 12 March 2024 Lady Macbeth: a Paradox of Power Within the vast expanse of civilization, a perennial and unyielding desire for power imbues the human spirit; it acts as a transcendent force, motivating each person and shaping the contours of human history. Yet, in this timeless quest, a captivating paradox often emerges— where outward displays of strength veil intricate internal webs of vulnerability. William Shakespeare exemplifies this delicate dance between power and fragility through his seventeenth-century tragic play The Tragedy of Macbeth. This drama, set against the backdrop of eleventh-century, war-ridden Scotland, is set into motion when titular character Macbeth meets three witches …show more content…

A prime example of this torment is Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking. As the ruinous consequences of her and her husband’s despicable machinations permeate her conscience, Lady Macbeth becomes riddled with guilt and consequently trapped in a psychological labyrinth. She is condemned to exist in an eternal state of sleep, where she acts and feels as though she is awake, yet imagines she is stuck in the fiery depths of hell. As a part of this disordered slumber, Lady Macbeth believes that her hands are dripping with blood, though they are completely clean. As she desperately tries to wash the crimson stains of guilt from her fingertips, she bellows, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say...... Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (Shakespeare 5.1.29-30). The repeated insistence to purify her blood-soaked hands accentuates the profound remorse that now governs Lady Macbeth’s life. She is so consumed by guilt that she yearns to undo her previous misdeeds, tirelessly scrubbing her sin-stained hands and calling out into the night. She even contemplates Duncan’s murder, seeming utterly horrified as she reflects on the gory sight of his

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Late in the play, the guilt starts taking its toll on Lady Macbeth: “Out, damned spot! out, I say!... Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him” (5.1.39-44). It shows Lady Macbeth’s guilt and how she is constantly tries to wash her hands of the guilt—represented by blood. The power of guilt is shown as it has extreme mental effects on Lady Macbeth, eventually driving her to suicide.

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She says “Yet do I fear thy nature, / It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way”. She declares his nature as “too full of the milk of human kindness”. She once again degrades his manhood and states that he is too feeble to carry out the murder of Duncan and not being able to withstand the guilt.

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Lady Macbeth feels responsible for the start of the murders and evil acts that caused her declining mental state. Her remorse for her actions is portrayed when she tries to wash the blood out of her hands while sleepwalking saying “Out damn’d spot! out, I say!” (5,1,29). In this scene, Lady Macbeth rinses Duncan's “blood” off her hands to try to rid herself of the consequences of her actions, showing how guilt often controls a person and alters their behavior.

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Again while she is sleepwalking she says, “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” This shows that she was troubled by seeing Duncan's dead body when she put the baggers on the guards to make them look guilty. Another thing she says while sleepwalking is, “Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” Macbeth stated something similar to this after killing Duncan, which shows she is feeling what Macbeth was feeling at that time, but she doesn’t have anyone to help her through it because Macbeth is dealing with Malcolm and Macduff. In the first scene of the last act, we really start to see how seeing Duncan's dead body affected Lady Macbeth in the long run, however, Lady Macbeth wasn’t the only one who was affected by Duncan's death and showed symptoms of ptsd, Macbeth also showed symptoms that gradually changed him into a different person.

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Later on in the play, however, the guilt she feels really starts to develop and greatly affect her mentally. Unlike Macbeth’s conscious guilt, Lady Macbeth’s guilt is subconsciously expressed through her dreams while she sleepwalks. Although expressed differently, quite similarly to Macbeth’s initial reaction, Lady Macbeth implies that she is unable to rid herself of the blood: “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All / the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little / hand. O, O, O!”

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She recalls to Duncan’s murder guiltily, while washing her hands, she asks why King Duncan “had so much blood in him” (5.1.35) questioning the murder because of her remorse. She also recalls to the Macduff massacre, franticly washing her hands trying to clean the blood, asking “will [her] hands ne’er be clean” (5.1.38) wishing the guilt would go away. Soon after the sleepwalking scene it is inferred that Lady Macbeth commits suicide because her guilt was too much to live with anymore. Lady Macbeth overwhelmed with guilt, ends her life because it is all too much to handle without the companionship of her

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Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a powerful person, but to what extent is he truly powerful? The play's writer made him a deeply complicated character showing an internal conflict between power-hungry ambitions and his mental ability to commit the actions to achieve his ambition. In the play of Macbeth, Shakespeare uses his character to portray the universal truth that dark desires to take more power will end up taking the power you already had. At the beginning of the play Macbeth is presented as a mighty warrior who leads his country to a victory over the traitor Macdonwald, at this point of the play he shows his great loyalty and respect to the kingdom he served we can see this in the quote ‘Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements’ the quote further presents his status as a great warrior and violent man who is not affected by the brutal killings he is

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Macbeth’s Downfall to Power The human psyche inherently has a desire for power, whether it be an attempt to control others or escape domination and gain autonomy in one’s own life. Pleonexia, the extreme greed for something that rightfully belongs to others, acts as a toxic impulse in mankind, often resulting in immoral actions to obtain the power one desires. Literature emphasizes this corrupt mindset by depicting a character’s dissatisfaction with mediocre control. The character continuously craves more until facing his tragic flaw, ultimately resulting in the character drowning in the fear of defeat, making a misjudgment as he approaches his downfall.

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From Macbeth feeling “drowned in blood”, to Lady Macbeth not being able to wash her hands, shows how guilt will always come from making bad decisions. One wrong choice can ruin a person's life

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But since she was a major role in the murder, she had a lot of demons that came with her actions. Because of her guilt she started to sleepwalk and have hallucinations from the night of the murder. “Out damned spot, out, I say!” (V, i, 37) As someone who has slept walk before, I know that the causes of sleepwalking is from stress, a dramatic experience, or from an illness, and in Lady MacBeths cause she suffered from all three of those things.

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Well then, then it’s in me to do it. Hell is dark.” (V.i.30-31.) In this scene, Lady Macbeth is hallucinating that Duncan’s blood has stained her hands and that she cannot get it off. The guilt has fully taken over her body because of the sins she has committed.

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As a result of her inability to escape the nightmare of immense guilt in sleeping or in wakefulness, Lady Macbeth crosses into the state of eternal sleep, death. In conclusion, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth demonstrates that a guilty conscience is a mind-probing enemy that can strike quietly and become a deadly, overpowering force that can subdue anyone with remorse. Through Lady Macbeth’s character transformation, the effects of a guilty conscience can thoroughly be seen. At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is an ambitious character that can repress her guilt to perform evil to a high extent.

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The lack of sleep caused by guilt gives the reader insight into the psychological toll that guilt has taken on Macbeth and Lady

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As Macbeth prepares to kill Duncan, he realizes that “this blow/Might be the be-all and the end-all here”(1.7.4-5), meaning this might be the end if he gets caught. Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth to “proceed no further in this business”(1.7.34), telling her to stop thinking about killing Duncan. Macbeth does not listen to his own advice and continues to think about murdering Duncan, which he achieves. After the murder of Duncan, Macbeth looks towards Lady Macbeth as he says,”This is a sorry sight”(2.2.28), truly acknowledging his actions and feeling guilty for them. As Macbeth lets the murder sink in, he realizes that the blood will never be “

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Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I am the Second Witch from the play, Macbeth and my job is to identify and analyse how I have represented power in Macbeth. Macbeth is an English play published in 1606 by William Shakespeare during the reign of James I and is based on Shakespeare’s idea of the thirst for political and social power during the 17th century (Colonial Period). William Shakespeare’s intent of Macbeth is to exaggerate the damaging physical and psychological effects of political and social ambition on those who pursue power for the sake of it. In doing so the theme of power is represented through my relationships with other characters in the novel throughout the novel.

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