What are the effects of guilt?
Contrast them to Shakespeare's approach to the topic by
examining changes in Lady Macbeth resulting in her death, as well as Macbeth's
attempts to protect himself and finally accepting the consequences of his deed.
Under the effects of guilt, people can do/behave in unusual ways. In some cases, people can do things from constant questioning of their own decisions/themselves, to suddenly changing their emotions (from extreme happiness to depression). By comparing the effects of guilt to Macbeth, you can see how guilt affects Lady Macbeth, ultimately resulting in her death. At first, Lady Macbeth is firm and insistent on making Macbeth king upon hearing of the prophecy that Macbeth will become king. One quote when Macbeth has the idea of killing the king in his head, "Were you drunk when you seemed so hopeful before"? This quote is Lady Macbeth trying to get Macbeth to follow along with a plan where he kills King Duncan and becomes king. She even goes as far to say, "as the baby was smiling up at me, I would have plucked my nipple out of its mouth and smashed its brains out against a wall if I had sworn to do that the same way you have sworn to do this". These two quotes show how insistent she is on the idea of killing King Duncan in an attempt to get Macbeth to become the future/new king. However, after the couple actually kill the king, Lady Macbeth starts suffering from guilty conscience. On page 61 when she sleep walks, "Why should we be scared, when no one can lay the guilt upon us"? Also, "I still have the smell of blood on my hand. All the perfumes of Arabia couldn’t make my little hand smell better. Oh, oh, oh"! Near the end of the play, Lady Macbeth is feeling the guilt of assisting in the death of King Duncan. Her final words on page 62 before she apparently commits suicide: "To bed, to bed! There’s a knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed"! She is accepting that she cannot erase what has been done. The guilt of killing King Duncan turned her from an evil, ambitious female to a mad-driven, guilt-ridden person who committed suicide. In addition, Macbeth also employs various ways to secure himself and his title as king. One way he does this is by attempting to alter the prophecy of The Witches. According to page 35, Banquo says:
ReplyDelete"Oh, this is treachery! Get out of here, good Fleance, run, run, run! Someday you can get revenge.—Oh, you bastard!
BANQUO dies. FLEANCE escapes". Macbeth attempts to erase the prophecy from page 5 that says: "Your descendants will be kings, even though you will not be one". Unfortunately for Macbeth, the murder attempt fails and his son (Fleance) escapes before being murdered. Later on, he seeks The Witches to see what foreshadowing they have for him in the future. "I insist that you answer my questions. I command you in the name of whatever dark powers you serve" (page 45). Shortly after, one of the spells that they created, called "apparitions", warn Macbeth, "Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff. Beware the thane of Fife" (page 46). This quote not only shows Macbeth trying to protect himself, it also shows Macbeth accepting the consequences of his deed, when Macduff kills him in a sword fight and puts his head on a plate.
Guilt can lead to many different things and can show its effects differently in people. People usually act abnormal, do things they have never done, lash out, lose their temper quickly and at worst case scenario kill themselves.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the play, lady Macbeth tried to convince Macbeth to kill king Duncan using different ways like insulting, passive aggressive etc. “Have you gone to sleep and woken up green and pale in fear of this idea?” or “Are you afraid to act the way you desire?” or even “You’re like the poor cat in the old story”. When Macbeth finally kills king Duncan while he was asleep, she felt at fault. Because she was the one who convinced Macbeth and therefore she thought she was the one in charge of king Duncan’s death. She couldn’t stand her feelings so she committed a suicide.
And for Macbeth,
Macbeth didn’t kill Banquo himself. He got three murderers to kill him so he won’t feel guilty. However, guilt made him hallucinate and see his friend who got murdered, Banquo. "Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!" he said. After a while Macbeth kills his guilt and enters a guiltless state. (Sobanko, A. (2014, March 28). Guilt in Macbeth. Retrieved November 24, 2019, from https://prezi.com/fxget05oum3y/guilt-in-macbeth/ )
ReplyDeleteAround the middle of the play we see Lady Macbeth feels guilty and looking for a way to cleanse herself. She encourages Macbeth to kill king Duncan but after Macbeth killed him, she notices that king’s blood is now on her hands. (She keep thinking that there’s blood on her hands).She knew she was responsible for convincing Macbeth to kill the king.
Soon, she filled with guilty because of her crimes.
In Act 5, scene 1 we see Lady Macbeth has a nightmare and she is sleepwalking and trying to wash King Duncan’s invisible blood off of her hand.
As the play theme is mysterious, her death is unexplained; we don’t know her death is suicide or it an accident but with what we see in the play, her guilt makes her insane, so we can probably say she killed herself.
Guilt can make people usually do things they have never done,guilt can also make a person hallucinate things
ReplyDeleteIn Act 1 scene 7 Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to kill Duncan, she persuades him, for example by insulting his masculinity, After Macbeth refuses to commit regicide, Lady Macbeth calls him a coward and comparing him to a cat that wants a fish but is too afraid to get its feet wet. But after the murder of King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff’s family, Lady Macbeth had sleepless nights ,feeling guilty for her deeds but she couldn’t stand all the guilt so she committed suicide.
In Act 5 Scene 5 , a messenger tells Macbeth “ As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought
The wood began to move” and Macbeth responded that “I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt th' equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth” The quote not only shows Macbeth trying to protect himself, it also shows Macbeth accepting the consequences of his deed.