Macbeth Ghost Essay

“I have heard (but not believ'd) the spirits of the dead may walk again” (The Winter’s Tale 3.3) Shakespeare authored many plays in his lifetime, quite a few of which involve ghosts. These ghosts are most often characters that had died, but still seek an earthly goal, wrathful motives, or unfinished business. These ghosts must briefly come back to haunt the earth until their issues are resolved. Although Shakespeare uses ghosts in quite a few of his plays, three of the most significant are the ghost of Banquo in Macbeth, the ghost of Caesar in Julius Caesar, and the ghost of the king in Hamlet. In all three of these plays, Shakespeare’s Ghosts usually appear to remind someone of their guilt or to seek revenge for their own unfortunate deaths.

But soon his actions came back to haunt him in the form of Banquo’s ghost. During a great feast hosted by Macbeth, the ghost emerged to terrorize him. The ghost said nothing, but was merely there to remind Macbeth that he could not escape the shame of his crimes. In doing so, the ghost caused Macbeth to slowly drown in his guilt, and it eventually drove him mad because the ghost was an unending reminder of what he had done. This caused Macbeth to spiral down into complete insanity as his guilt overtook him and all rational thought that he once had. The Ghost of Banquo came back to seek revenge for both his death and the king’s death by not letting it go quietly. He wanted Macbeth to pay for his crimes, and he did that by driving him insane with

As the play began, Hamlets father, King Hamlet, had just died, and the king’s brother, Claudius, had just taken his place on the throne by marrying the newly widowed queen. The Ghost then appeared to Hamlet one fateful night, and told him many things concerning the matter of his death. He relayed to Hamlet that his death was not a mere accident, that Claudius, a supposed friend, had poisoned him in order to steal the throne and the queen. He told Hamlet to get revenge on Claudius, and make his crimes known. The way the ghost brought Claudius’s guilt to light in this situation is different from the others in that he appeared to Hamlet, rather than Claudius. And instead of Claudius going insane with his own guilt, like Macbeth, Hamlet began to go insane with the thought of Claudius’s guilt. Hamlet set out to seek revenge and did all he could to bring Claudius’s guilt to light in the best way. This is what he spent the entirety of the play doing. The ghost got revenge on Claudius for both stealing his throne and marrying his wife, simply by telling Hamlet to pursue revenge, which he did. Hamlet reminded Claudius of his guilt by putting on a play that relayed the exact way that Claudius killed the King. “The play’s the thing that will catch the conscience of the king.” (Hamlet) In the end, he finally got revenge on the King by simply stabbing him through the heart with a poison-tipped