Discuss the Effect of Guilt on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the Shakespearean Play

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Discuss the Effect of Guilt on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth The play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, is a tale of tragedy full of betrayal and crime, and undoubtedly guilt. However, those who you expect to feel remorseful at the beginning are not and later on those who were guilty to begin with do not have the same feelings as before, and vice-versa. In the early stages of the play, after Macbeth writes to his wife of how the witches have prophesised of how he will become king and how their other prophecies have been fulfilled already, Lady Macbeth is suddenly overwhelmed with the thought of power that might be and drives her unwilling husband to kill King Duncan and take to the throne. The irony is that the warrior Macbeth is unsure of the murder, yet his wife is unfazed by the idea of a brutal taking of the throne. She taunts him and goads him on with meddling accusations, in Act 1 Scene 7 she repeatedly tells him he is not a real man because he will not do it, “When thou durst do it, then you were a man” This is a key phrase which angers Macbeth and persuades him to do it to prove her wrong. Before the murder Macbeth is still anxious about committing an act of such betrayal and even hallucinates there is a dagger leading him towards Duncan’s room, thus beginning the famous speech; “Is this a dagger which I see before me…”. Even before that he performs a soliloquy in which he questions his motives to kill Duncan, he realises that he has no motive other than ambition for he says himself that Duncan has not been an immoral or unruly king, “ Besides, this Duncan Hath
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