Significance Of Guilt In Macbeth

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Macbeth 2nd Quarter Paper Everyone has experienced guilt at sometime in their life. It plagues the minds of children and adults who have done wrong and violated their own moral standards, or even that of society. It is a natural human reaction to committing a wrongdoing like stealing a cookie or hurting someone. In the case of Macbeth and his wife however, their guilt stems from their horrid act of murder against their innocent King Duncan and their friend Banquo. Their reactions and ways of experiencing guilt differ. Macbeth more obviously is afflicted by this feeling, as his moral compass is more direct. His wife, Lady Macbeth, has a more subtle urging of guilt in her life as it only plagues her, subconsciously, in her sleep. Shakespeare…show more content…
This guilt is built up because she was the sole supporter and fuel for Macbeth’s ambition to murder. She is the one who started the plan with her insistence that Macbeth kill Duncan in order to inherit the throne. Macbeth may not have even committed the murder had it not been for her forceful and manipulative urging. Lady Macbeth experiences a more subconscious, subtle feeling of guilt. During her waking hours, she appears to be perfectly content with their master murder plan as she convinces her husband to do dastardly deeds. But at night, she sleepwalks, chanting and scrubbing at her hands. She seems to be obsessively washing her hands, symbolizing her desire to wash away her guilt. Her guilt is more sudden than that of Macbeth. All throughout the beginning of the play, she is nagging, forceful, manipulative, and seemingly free of a moral compass and conscience. Before the scene where the gentlewoman sees her sleepwalking and washing her hands, Lady Macbeth does not even exhibit an inkling of a guilty conscience. She never so much as sympathizes with her husband when he feels remorse about his murder. Then, suddenly she is stricken with overwhelming guilt that keeps her up at night. Contrary to this, Macbeth has a gradual build up of guilt that starts even before the deed is done. Her lack of guilt at the beginning of the play could be because she calls upon the power of darkness to take her conscience away from her. She asks that darkness make her more like a man than a woman so "That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, to cry 'Hold, hold!'”. She doesn’t want to feel bad and be weakened by feelings about the deeds she has done. Just as the power of darkness took her morality and guilt away, it could have given it back. Seeing this, it is supposable that the unnatural or supernatural side to the story had a profound effect on Lady Macbeth’s
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