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Macbeth Guilt Essay

770 Words4 Pages

Classics remain many years later since emotions such as conscience and guilt are universally and continually part of many cultures; they are a means to control human behavior. Conscience is defined as an inner feeling or voice which acts as a guide to rightness or wrongness of one's behavior; for the play, the main characters knew what was right and wrong. Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth chose to behave badly, then suffer consequences leading to their deaths. The guilt described in Macbeth is extreme. It could have prevented Macbeth and Lady Macbeth from doing evil deeds in the beginning. After they plotted and King Duncan was murdered, their guilt grew, causing visions and sleeplessness. He continues to do evil deeds and she became insane (leading …show more content…

Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to commit the murder, he knows that murder is evil but he overcomes his ethical objections and plots the murder of Duncan. After the murder of the King, sleeplessness caused by guilt is a recurring theme. “Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick coming fancies that her from rest”. 5.3.46.48) In this quotation the doctor is explaining that Lady Macbeth’s sleeplessness is caused by the guilt of “thick coming fancies” or evil deeds. Macbeth’s response is “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?”. (5.3.50.55) Macbeth is asking the doctor if there is a medicine which could help Lady Macbeth forget Duncan's murder which would remove her guilt. Lady Macbeth's relentless pursuit of power not only affects Macbeth, but it ruins her own sanity and happiness. The play highlights the nature of unchecked ambition, which is being destroyed, and the consequences of one's

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