His lack of a guilty conscience allows for him to go on in denial and is able to clear his mind of any remorse. Macbeth has a moment of immediate regret for his actions but once the deed is done, he is reassured by Lady Macbeth is ultimately happy with his new position as King of Scotland. The murderers that are hired to murder Banquo, tell Macbeth that Banquo has been killed right before a large state dinner. We see how much Macbeth is remorseful for his actions when he is visited by the ghost of Banquo. “Avaunt and quit my sight!
Macbeth has allowed his false sense of security to cloud his judgement, which is exactly why no one but himself can be blamed for his tragedy. Upon killing Young Siward Macbeth says, “Thou wast born of woman. / But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, / Brandish’d by man that’s of a woman born,” (V, vii, 16-18). Macbeth’s over-confidence blinds his thinking, and so with the thought that he cannot be harmed by any man of woman born, he overlooks the possibility of a man born of caesarean section, and instead just assumes that he is invincible. This over-confidence and sense of
Antigone was very heroic and brave at first, Creon now punishes her, and she does not fight back, but she simply badmouths her father. “O Oedipus, father and brother your marriage strikes from the grave to murder mine (7.40-41) says a coward Antigone. Creon, on the other hand who is supposed to be the strong king of the land, does not manage to control his anger, and fights his own son in an argument. This can be considered a sense of pride, since Creon did not want to change his opinion. Part of being a tragic hero is having a destruction.
When he tells his fiancée, Sibyl Vane, that he does not want to see her anymore, she becomes despondent and kills herself. Her suicide gives rise to his guilty and remorseful feelings. He considers her death his fault, and there had to have been something he could’ve done to prevent her death. When Lord Henry hears of Dorian’s culpability, he swiftly saturates Dorian’s head with his philosophies and repudiates anything more of how Sibyl’s death is Gray’s burden to bear and to think of her death as a “perfect artistic representation of undying love” (Wilde 79-89). Although Dorian rapidly surrenders to Lord Henry’s words, the idea that he felt rueful shows that within Gray, there is the capability of
He almost immediately begins planning his course of action towards revenge. Hamlet’s disgust toward his mother is only heightened with this news of murder, “O most pernicious woman! / O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!” (Iv.105-106). Old Hamlet’s ghost has warned Hamlet not to punish Gertrude with hell, but he does not seem to care. Hamlet has now taken this personal with his own desires for revenge, as well as his obligation to his deceased father.
One of the main messages he is trying to deliver to us is to always weigh what you achieve to what the consequences will be. This especially holds true for Macbeth, as when first contemplating if he should kill Duncan, not once did he think of how he could be punished. Also, when Macbeth first hears the witch’s prophecy of him being a king, he jumps directly to the idea of murder. This kind of thinking is exhibited in Macbeth’s monologue in scene 5 act 5, where he discus’s the uselessness of living, and this attitude towards life made him go mad. This also points to how unintelligent Macbeth really was.
Hamlet kills Polonius behind the tapestry because he suspects that it might be Claudius, but when he unveils the body and discovers that it is Polonius, he shows no sign of guilt at all. He acts like he is “convinced that he is the complete master of an obviously unhealthy situation” (Prosser Pg. 125). A person who wants nothing more but justice for the death of a loved one would feel bad for killing an innocent person during the process, but that is not the case with Hamlet. He shows no sign of guilt or remorse towards the death of Polonius, because he is clearly past the point of justice and is seeking revenge.
She finds him a coward because he fails to follow the murder plan and does not leave two daggers with Duncan’s sleeping guards so as to blame them for the murder. By boldly doing the act herself and going back to the murder scene to smear blood on the guards, Lady Macbeth proves ambitious and ruthless while Macbeth appears yet still contemplative and somewhat humane. After Macbeth says “I am afraid to think what I have done./ Look on it again I dare not..” [2.1.63] Macbeth scrutinizes him and tells him “‘tis the eyes of childhood/ That fears a painted devil,” [2.1.66] which ultimately shows Macbeth’s moral compass falling into the hands of his wife who proves the stronger
Very little ambiguity is found within this verse, as Vindice’s motive is clear: revenge. He jokes ‘Hum, who e’er knew murder unpaid?’ and finds no difficulty in justifying his dark plans to seek revenge, so much so that the scene almost becomes comical. Already, the audience sense Vindice is undercutting his wife’s death: his attitude is flippant and we suspect that this will not serve him well, foreboding what is to come later in the play. When comparing the two plays, it also becomes clear that serious matters are dealt with in
Throughout the course of the play we see how he changes from ‘Valour’s minion’ to his death and a ‘Butcher’. He was not given the chance to repent like Faustus was yet he was easily influenced by his wife showing his lack of willpower. We feel more respect for Macbeth as his death was more dignified with him fighting to the last. ‘Why should I play the roman fool and die on mine own sword?’ this contextual reference is showing how he will not commit suicide as it was customary for the roman generals to do so in the face of defeat. His wives death was an omen of his ultimate death as she was always there on his rise to power and without her he is not as powerful as he thinks he is.