Examples Of Mental Illness In Lady Macbeth

Shakespeare wrote his tragedies with many characters that in modern day would be diagnosed with a mental illness. His tragedy Macbeth was written almost 350 years before the first mental illness was diagnosed. One of the most apparent mentally ill characters Shakespeare has written was Lady Macbeth. Any psychologist today, with the specific diagnostic criteria, would easily be able to diagnose Lady Macbeth with paranoid personality disorder. Paranoid personality disorder, or paranoia, is defined as the unrelenting mistrust or suspicion of others. This definition almost exactly describes Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. Lady Macbeth does not trust any of the people in her life, not even her husband. In the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth did not trust that he would be able to commit the murder in order for him to become the king. She also does not trust that her husband was doing what he said he was.
The criteria that she fits most is “suspecting others of exploiting them” (Skodal 649). Lady Macbeth is consistently worrying that someone will find out that her and Macbeth plotted and performed the murder of the king, Duncan. She even fakes passing out due to her thinking that someone would catch onto Macbeth’s excuses for killing the guards. During the dinner that …show more content…
Lady Macbeth, in the play, does not have any friends that the reader knows of, and she also has many problems in her marriage. Throughout the entire play, Macbeth refers to Lady Macbeth as his wife, only once. Likewise, Lady Macbeth refers to Macbeth as her husband very few times. To a reader this fact would be very obvious that their marriage has issues within it. Another large part of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s marriage that shows that Lady Macbeth has poor relationships is that she is constantly yelling at Macbeth and putting him