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Madness And The Influence Of Macbeth's Madness

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"Whence is that knocking? How is't with me when every noise appals me? What hands are here?Ha! They pluck out mine eyes. 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." (2.2 75-80) This line previews madness as a trait that appears frequently throughout Shakespeare's Macbeth. It is shown in characters actions and words. This particular quote is representing Macbeth's guilty conscience. "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand" is evidence that King Duncan's blood will always be on Macbeth's hands. The Madness Macbeth shows near the end of the play wasn't always his fate. Macbeth descends into madness with the influence of the Witches, Lady Macbeth, and the idea of good vs. evil in his own mind.
A major influence of Macbeth's Madness were the three witches and their prophecies.
The witches prophecies pressured Macbeth into making the wrong decisions because of seemingly rewarding results. The witches first prophecy promises Macbeth the throne, …show more content…

Macbeth was constantly making decisions that affected his future and because he needed help making them, was misled by what he thought were trusted sources. The witches, Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth himself all show some form of madness throughout the play. The witches are mad because of their obsession of causing misfortune for no reason. Lady Macbeth becomes a power-hungry murder that in the end causes their guilty consciousness to lead them to their deaths. Overall, madness was frequently found in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, presented not only by characters as a trait but also as conflicts/. Likewise, Merriam Webster defines the word madness as "a state of frenzied or chaotic activity" or "Extremely foolish behavior" representing how madness can not only be used as a trait, but also as an

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