My Guilt In Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'

Decent Essays
Thou seems to be my only companion in this declining state. I hath spent the nights searching for rest, and the morning greets me more tired and drained than when I retired. I have strange rememberings from the night. Whether they are dreams or reality, I cannot tell. As this series of events began, I believed that nobody could trace the guilt back to me. Yet, the guilt now covers me and my stains refuse to depart. Macbeth is losing himself and hath killed his morality along with his other victims. He was too fearful, yet is not fearful enough. Too full of the milk of human kindness, yet too full of the blood of malice and treason. The dark forces I once beseeched to make thick my blood now taunt my remorse. I spend my hours in mental agony,

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    , he is too motivated by his conscience to fulfill his reputation. Towards the mid-part of the speech, euphemisms prove that Macbeth is focussed more on the consequences he could face, rather than ambitions. When Macbeth says that “Bloody instructions, which being taught return/ To plague the inventor: this even handed justice/ Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice/ To our own lips” (1.7: 9-12). Guilt will haunt him for a long time.…

    • 246 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The last major theme in the play is portrayed by multiple characters, which is guilt. Macbeth felt very guilty right after he committed King Duncan’s murder, “As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands/list’ning their fear, I could not say ‘Amen,’/when they did say ‘God bless us’” (II.ii.35-37). In that quote you can tell Macbeth feels extremely guilty because he cannot say the word “Amen.” A word that he used to be able to say with ease, now seems nearly impossible to come out of his mouth.…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He who is guilty and driven by ambition will be blindly pulled around until justice stares him in the face. The Lion King by Roger Allers and Macbeth by Shakespeare are two very different pieces of work but have similar themes throughout. The Lion King and Macbeth have two character in which guilt haunts them in different ways. Blood is significant in both pieces of literature because the main characters feel that they cannot get the blood of others off their hands. Both characters go on a journey significant to their upbringing or downfall.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the entire play, Macbeth acts out of guilt and fear and is not once threatened or forced to execute a crime. By sinning, committing high treason, and ending the lives of many, Macbeth’s mental deterioration becomes complete. Although he was driven there by panic and the thirst for dominance, no excuse could ever validate Macbeth’s response to guilt and the power of his free…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Macbeth can only plummet to new depths of betrayal and disgrace” (Cohen). Cohen shows Macbeth’s downward spiral. He describes…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The absence of guilt can destroy a human mentally, physically and emotionally. This is because a lack of guilt can make a human lose the things that make them human. They will lose morals, they will misuse power to destroy relationships so they can gain more power. Without guilt a human will have a loss of humanity, loss of morality and they will misuse power to destroy relationships to get more power. In Macbeth William Shakespeare portrays that the absence of guilt can turn a human into a cold, ruthless, vicious and cruel animal.…

    • 1148 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Guilt Theme In Macbeth

    • 1304 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Guilt is an emotion associated with feelings of shame, regret, or responsibility for something a person has done. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the two protagonists, Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth, both suffer feelings of guilt for a heinous crime, the murder of their king. Guilt manifests itself differently in these two characters, as it does in every guilty person. Shakespeare uses blood imagery to develop the theme of guilt, as both characters struggle with and grow accustomed to the presence of blood throughout the play.…

    • 1304 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Excessive ambition and greed will change a man’s personality. The sight of blood tempts a noble person to do greedy and dishonourable deeds. Macbeth is an honourable man, having being recognized as a trustworthy and brave man by the King. The thoughts and plans of murdering King Duncan have made him guilty, however, he still continues…

    • 1592 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As my crimson nails reached down towards the soft dirt, black tendrils reached up to grab my wrist. The poison, something created to repel any Man from reaping the rewards from its seeds, could not infiltrate my body, but two of my closest kin had already been lost to the wisps of smoke during a Harvest. I smiled softly, remembering the feeling of the same soil covering my skin on a day of celebration in the Meadows many years ago. My companions cleared their throats and I whirled around to see the face of my closest friend. A stinging sensation bit my cheek from her blow and pain of losing a friend hurt unlike anything I had every experienced before.…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the play Macbeth, William Shakespeare examines guilt. Clearly, he believes that guilt will always torture you after committing something wrong. In the play, the actor Lady Macbeth states, “Here’s the smell of blood still. All the / perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. /…

    • 116 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Macbeth Good Vs Evil

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages

    My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.” (V.viii.4-6). His guilt over murdering his entire family debilitates his once strong courage, which ultimately seals his fate in that he lacks the might to fight back against…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s well-renowned plays that centralizes on a king’s struggle with guilt and, ultimately, the road to his demise. Although Macbeth was known for being a man of bravery and honor, Shakespeare utilized a plethora of literary devices to showcase that his ambition had overcome his state of mind. In Macbeth, Shakespeare used strong dynamic characters, significant motifs, and powerful soliloquies to develop the theme that the ultimate desire for power has the capability to tempt even the most noble men to be driven to corruption. To begin with, Shakespeare uses a strong dynamic character to develop the theme that the desire for power can cause noble men to become corrupt. In Act 1, Macbeth concluded that the key to the…

    • 1173 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Being caught red handed is a universal symbol of guilt in the sense that one has done something unwholesome, but it usually does not equate to the feeling of remorse, as it does in Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth. No one catches Lady Macbeth with literal blood on her hands, but she still has an unclean conscience long after the murder. Bloody hands symbolize the guilt held within Lady Macbeth, significantly playing into her character development, transitioning her from cold hearted and unfeeling to insane from remorse, leading her to kill herself with her own hands. Directly after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth feels much more guilty than Lady Macbeth, and creates a metaphor comparing guiltiness to the cleanliness of one’s hand, while Lady Macbeth does not yet understand the remorse that he feels.…

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When Macbeth starts his reign, wide-scale killing arises from the sacrilegious murder of King Duncan. Once a brave and courageous warrior, as well as a venerable subject, Macbeth has been twisted by fate to become the ruthless character he is. In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, Macbeth is progressively affected by continuous and increasing isolation, as well as cut offs from normal ties and relations. In Act II, there are pieces of evidence that begin to reveal Macbeth’s change of character, influenced by the isolation and relational cut offs he begins to experience.…

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Macbeth is callous, he is unkind, and worst of all, Macbeth is only concerned about himself. “Macbeth has no conscience. His main concern throughout the play is that most selfish of all concerns; to get a good night’s sleep…” (McCarthy 3). He worries only about covering up the murders he committed and looking innocent to his court.…

    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays