[5.1.30-34]”. Lady Macbeth is beginning to unravel. She is on a slow ride into madness because of the guilt of her ambition and what it drove her to do. She is convinced that her hands are permanently stained with blood. She is saying that as long as her power is secure, she should not be harmed by the murders she has committed, but she knows deep down that this is untrue.
Throughout the play Lady Macbeth is the driving influence behind Macbeth and the immoral path that he chose to follow. To put it simply Lady Macbeth started the rot and persuaded the hesitant and indecisive Macbeth to “be a man” and do the deed of killing Duncan. Macbeth initially decided to “proceed no further” in the matter of killing Duncan because he had been kind to him of late bestowing the position of Thane of Cawdor on him. She responds to this by saying that if he can lose his ambition so readily, his love for her must also be changeable. Then she insults his masculinity and questions his courage.
showing us that the thought of murder was already at the back of his mind. Macbeth could not have been as honourable and trustworthy as people believed him to be, given that if he had had but a shred of integrity, murder would have been the last thing on his mind. Macbeth is given prophecies by the witches and he is encouraged to act on these suggestions by Lady Macbeth, but he ultimately makes the choices to murder Duncan, Macduff's family and Banquo. The fact that Macbeth feels guilt, fears being caught and fears losing the throne reveals he has hidden anxiety. If Macbeth was truly at the mercy of fate, following the prophesise that was “set out”, he would have no difficulties in carrying out his crimes.
Macbeth is scared by the blood of Duncan. However, the blood may not be seen by others since it is only figurative. It is the eternal reminder to those characters of the terrible sin that they have committed. This symbol functions as a figurative tattoo that may not be removed from the hands. It drives Lady Macbeth to insanity that will eventually bring her to her collapse.
This shows that Macbeth once again was filled with guilt but again his wife contradicted him and led him down the path of evil. This is the example of the relationship at opposite ends. Macbeth wanted to do the greater good and Lady Macbeth wanted to do the most evil. Evil prevails and it shows a sense of death and darkness through the couple. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are also on the same page
Besides Macbeth, Lady Macbeth also shows her character is deceiving by planning how Duncan will be killed. At the end of the play she dies because the guilt from helping to kill Duncan was too much of a burden on her conscience. Lastly, the witches are deceiving characters because they give confusing prophecies. Macbeth misinterprets the confusing prophecies which later lead to his tragic death. There are many appearances that show characters in the play Macbeth are deceiving, ultimately leading to tragedy.
This quotation shows that the impact of her behaviour has become clear not only to herself but to those around her. ‘Sorely charged’ means heavily burdened, which is very different to the carefree attitude that Lady Macbeth had to the murder earlier on in the play, and shows that the realisation of what she has done has finally caught up with her. This could suggest that the guilt was only repressed in Act 2 for the sake of keeping Macbeth calm, and now these feelings of remorse have made themselves apparent in her subconscious mind. Also, after the murder of King Duncan, Lady Macbeth assured Macbeth that the blood would wash off their hands easily: ‘A little water clears us of this deed’. This shows that she feels after washing their hands, she and her husband will be able to forget the deed and be
Guilt is constantly seen throughout the play Macbeth driving the characters to question their morals. To the responder it appears that Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind the initial killing of King Duncan influencing her husband Macbeth to commit the evil deeds by threatening him with his man hood by saying “when you do it, then you are a man”. Her tone portrays her dominant nature and her hunger for authority and demonstrates to the responder her strength as a character. However her over confident traits and clear and concise thinking is diminished once the guilt of the crime poisons her conscience. This is demonstrated by her imagining her hands stained by blood and her constantly trying to clean the “damned spot” away and rid her sole of the guilt.
He is soon overwhelmed with ambition and self-doubt. He keeps questioning his own actions, but he is compelled to commit further atrocities in order to cover up all his previous mistakes and wrong-doings. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a strange relationship. The guilty one for the king’s death is actually Lady Macbeth, because she liked the idea of becoming queen so much that she kept pressuring Macbeth into doing it. Macbeth writes a
Macbeth is the real villain and Lady Macbeth is just a partner in crime, egging him on because of her desire to be Queen. Macbeth was loyal to his King and was an excellent soldier. However his wife, Lady Macbeth could see a better future for Macbeth as King after Macbeth tells her about the witches and their prophesies in a letter. Despite these conflicting ideas, it was Macbeth himself who decided to murder Duncan and the others. It seems that most people believe that Macbeth is the real villain of the play, after firstly killing the King but then Banquo and Macduff’s family but through Macbeth’s own ambition and desire for power, Lady Macbeth was able to manipulate and evoke weaknesses in Macbeth’s character to cause his respectable needs as a loyal solider, to turn into evil motivations.