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Theme Of Schizophrenia In Macbeth

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Paranoia with a Side of Hallucinations
Picture living in a world where it was impossible to separate imagination from reality; Where seeing did not always mean believing. It would be living in an inconceivable hell, incapable to remember what was real and what was dreams. This is what it is like everyday to live with paranoid schizophrenia. Paranoid schizophrenia is a subset of schizophrenia, in which victims suffer from hallucinations that others are plotting against them. Schizophrenia typically originates from biological factors; however, environmental factors can manipulate someone into falling victim to this horrendous disease. This exact disease is what lead to the downfall of the noble warrior, Macbeth, in the Shakespearian play. There …show more content…

The last act of the play shows the final consequences of Macbeth’s actions. Macbeth does not care if the world has to suffer for him to thrive. The witches in the play are able to manipulate Macbeth’s greed to make him spiral out in a self destructing fury. Throughout the play Macbeth loses his mortality in order to gain power outside his realm of possibility. Macbeth becomes a blood thirsty monster because he forgets how to be a human. Macbeth’s mind has become so “familiar with slaughterous thoughts” that he “forgot the taste of fears” (5.5.9,14). Macbeth’s greed made his mind so dark that he can no longer fear the real world. This shows that Macbeth’s paranoia and hallucinations are so awful, that the real world does not seem threatening. Even with enemies wanting to kill him, Macbeth becomes more frightened by his own mind. When Macbeth’s wife dies, he does not even feel remorse because he can no longer feel human emotions. When told the news of his wife’s death, Macbeth’s only response is that it was bound to happen eventually. Macbeth’s final outlook on the life he did so much to get, is that “Life’s but a walking shadow / … signifying nothing” (5.5.24,28). Macbeth cannot live with the fact that he did horrible deeds to achieve power, and in the end it was not even worth it. Macbeth feels like his life has no meaning, and he wasted his time on Earth with greedy, selfish desires. This idea is supported by the belief that “Macbeth finds not the release and fulfillment he had hoped for, but spiritual desolation” (Halio 251). Macbeth thought once he had enough power, everything would be perfect. However, Macbeth was never able to settle and kept wanting more, which left him unfulfilled and dissatisfied. Since Macbeth was never able to find this release, the stress and guilt of his past actions destroyed him. Macbeth’s schizophrenia darkened his thoughts

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This disorder caused Macbeths death. If it wasn’t for this terrible disorder Macbeth would never wanted power so bad. He would have been patient and waited for his time. The reason Macbeths death was fate is because it was out of Macbeths control he couldn’t help his disorder. He didn’t have the medical help he needed to beat this disorder.

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This is the ultimate reason why Macbeth is not culpable of his ruination and it is schizophrenia that killed him in the

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The character is suffering and this depiction of Macbeth is believed to have a modern mental illness. Macbeth’s past definitely can support the idea of his disturbed state of mind as we watch the character change throughout the film.

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Bryanna E. McCool Mrs. Dean British Literature 25 January 2018 Mental Illness in Shakespeare’s Macbeth The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, a play wrought with prophecies, deception, guilt, and death, brings light to the symptoms of mental illnesses and their effects on the human brain’s ability to reason, trust, and act in times of pressure. Both Macbeth and his lady are plagued by mental illness, and the effects of their illness only grow as the play evolves. Macbeth’s symptoms of schizophrenia and anxiety, as well as Lady Macbeth’s anxiety as well as hallucinations that eventually push her to suicide prove that not only can mental illness alter the way a person sees a situation, but it can also drive them to harm others and themselves.

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Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, is a play that mainly focuses on one common theme of insanity. Macbeth gradually becomes plagued by intense guilt as his desire for power drives him to attain his goals by any means necessary, including committing murder. He kills Duncan in cold blood in order to become King, has Banquo killed by three murderers because he wishes to maintain his position as King, and finally, he has Macduff’s family slaughtered. Each of these occurrences takes place because of Macbeth’s will to be King, or they are a result of his guilt. Nonetheless, they are all completed of his free will, which is what causes him to deteriorate mentally.

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At the beginning of William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ the protagonist Macbeth is described as ‘brave’, ‘noble’ and ‘honourable’, however Lady Macbeth’s and Macbeths desire for power consumes them. Macbeth’s ambition overrides his conscience and transformed his greatest strength into his greatest weakness. Macbeth’s inability to resist temptations that led him to be greedy for power, Macbeth’s easily manipulative nature which allowed his mind to be swayed, Macbeth having no self control and his excessive pride was what allowed him to renew his previously honourable and celebrated title into one of an evil ‘tyrant’. Macbeth is led by the prophecies of the witches after they foretell he will become the Thane of Cawdor. Not only the witches, but also his wife easily manipulate Macbeth as she attacks his manhood in order to provoke him to act on his desires.

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Lady Macbeth has shifted away from the nihilism that she had possessed before as she is now consumed with guilt over her actions. Later after Lady Macbeth’s death. Macbeth realizes that for them there is no long lasting fulfillment in life as he has no heir and has not accomplished anything that would allow him to leave a legacy. Even though Macbeth knows that there is no point in his actions. He realizes that his power is inevitably going to be lost.

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Macbeth is the Shakespearean play that features the triumphant uprise and the inevitable downfall of its main character. In this play, Macbeth’s downfall can be considered to be the loss of his moral integrity and this is achieved by ambition, despite this, Lady Macbeth and the witches work through his ambition, furthering to assist his inevitable ruin. Ambition alone is the most significant factor that led to Macbeth’s downfall. The witches are only able to influence his actions through Macbeth’s pre-existing and the three witches see that Macbeth has ambition and uses it to control his action. Ambition alone is displayed throughout the play to be the most significant cause for Macbeth’s downfall.

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He realizes he has “fallen from grace”, the world would be against him since he had destroyed the Elizabethan order. He does not see any meaning in life and therefore detaching himself from his emotions to turn himself into a vicious murderer. Macbeth’s despair over the loss of meaning in his life is reinforced in his Act 5 Scene 5 soliloquy, where he says life “is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing” (Act 5 Scene 5 lines 25-27). Macbeth comes to a point of realization that all his efforts to gain the throne are like the “sound and fury” of the tale, just acts crafted for the sake of the show without any actual outcome in the end. In exchange for kingship, he loses his “milk of human kindness” and his wife.

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