Guilt in Macbeth by William Shakespeare Essay Sample

Macbeth’s first line in Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, is “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” (Act 1 Scene 3, Line 33). At the time Macbeth had just defeated the Thane of Cawdor along with Banquo, who was his partner in battle. He was well-respected, humble, and strong...the true example of what a man should be, according to what the expectations were for a worthy man at the time. It can be presumed that Macbeth had everything he could have asked for, but to him it was not enough. After receiving his prophecy from the witches, the idea that Macbeth could be king drove him mad and to extreme measures. Throughout the play Macbeth comes to be a representation of how the possible rewards that may come from being greedy along with the desire for more, may allow you to end up with whatever it is you may want in the material world but will leave you with nothing as a person. In a deeper sense, within these two scenes, being Act 2 Scenes 2-3, Macbeth displays himself as an example of how guilt, remorse, and anger decay your mental stability and leave you on the brink of losing yourself. Again, at the beginning Macbeth was the ideal man, but he did not remain this way. He allows himself to lose the most important parts of being human, consequently enabling the negative aspects of human behavior determine who he becomes, all to gain more through control and greed. In the end though, it did not seem to have been worth it for him. Macbeth loses his purpose in life and questions what living is for. His confidence and certainty become paranoia and fear. His psychological state worsens as his guilt begins to eat at him, and this makes him fear everything around him. In the second scene of Act 2, Macbeth has a panic attack of a sort, he claims that along with murdering Banquo and the guards, he has also murdered his ability to sleep. Shakespeare’s use of this characterizes Macbeth as vulnerable, and faulty, revealing how his remorse for killing takes a large toll on how he acts. “Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,’ the innocent sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care...”, Macbeth’s ability to go to sleep and forget the actions of the day before, or the ability to calm his mind of what happened throughout the day, was gone. Macbeth was not only hearing voices, but he was convinced that he had murdered a natural ability of the human body, for the reason being that he felt he would never be able to proceed into another day and forget what happened the day before after committing such evil acts. In a later scene of Act 2, Macbeth reveals how he killed the guards out of anger. There are two sides to him executing this murder though, Macbeth wanted to cover up his tracks, if the guards had been awake while Macbeth killed Banquo then they would incriminate Macbeth. On the other side of the murder, Macbeth’s anger, guilt, and fear all cause a buildup in him that he takes out on the guards, through killing them. He claims that no man can be calm and collective but feel rage at the same time, and proceeds with the fact that his “violent love” for Duncan made for a fault in his reasoning. If it really was that Macbeth took his anger out on the guards, his character has not only become more afraid and unstable but also violent and aggressive. This does make sense though as later in the play, although not in this act, Macbeth becomes extremely hostile and aggressive towards everyone as one of the second group of prophecies he received approached him. This aggressive and irrational act after having killed Duncan already, only added to his guilt, he may have killed out of anger, but he still felt remorse, “O! yet I do repent me of my fury. That I did kill them.” (Act 2 Scene 3, Lines 107-108). Shakespeare’s way of shifting how Macbeth is portrayed in this act signifies the fine line between greed and insanity. Macbeth had been honorable, respected, and true to the kingdom that he served under Duncan’s rule, nevertheless he manages to become the opposite. His greed transforms him into a mentally weak, yet still physically aggressive version of himself. Taking all things into consideration, Macbeth does manage to convey the negative aspects of human behavior, but there is also one important aspect in being human that is displayed through the character of Macbeth. One must be willing to lose all that they have for the ability to gain all that they desire, unfortunately for Macbeth he was an example of someone who took the wrong risks for the wrong reasons and lost it all.