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As found in Macbeth, a fictional play, it can be noticed that the amount on paranoia found in the book is astonishing. William Shakespeare creates an environment where the reader can identify the situations where Macbeth is paranoid and how it clouds his judgement to make him do things that he never imagined himself doing. Killing King Duncan, the greatest ruler, and framing his children in order to have all of the power while also killing others in order to keep his spot at ruler of Scotland. In being paranoid, Macbeth no longer shares information with his wife, “Be innocent of knowledge, dearest chuck”(III,ii,51), he states this to Lady Macbeth after he makes the decision to commit the crime of murdering Banquo. Macbeth had reasons for being justifiably paranoid, the witches planted a seed in his brain that he just couldn’t seem to dig out of the ground. After hearing what the witches had to say about Banquo’s children being king in the future …show more content…
Having all of that intense anxiety and stress is what lead to both of the Macbeth’s to paranoia which lead to death. Keeping secrets and needing to kill Banquo in order to change the prophecy; having all of the blood on one’s hands, feeling like you can never wash it off. Macbeth was paranoid which clouded his once good judgement and had made him do things he thought he’d never do. Lady Macbeth never had good intentions but the paranoia led her to kill herself in order to get all of the thoughts out of her head. They were still just beginners when it came to crime, yet somehow they never managed to live the life that they wanted. Gaining power is just as hard as keeping it; Macbeth cheating resulted in easily gaining power and easily having taken it
Thirdly, feelings of paranoia and guilt cause Macbeth characters to make damaging choices. When Macbeth asks the witches to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him, they summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers a prediction to allay Macbeth’s fears. First, a floating head warns him to beware Macduff. Macbeth says that he has already guessed as much. Later when Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth in reply says, “The castle of Macduff I will surprise; / Seize upon Fife; give to th'edge o'th'sword / His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls / That trace him in his line.” (4.1.149-152). As Macbeth descends to madness he becomes obsessed with eliminating any threats to his power. Macbeth orders the murderers to kill Macduff's family and eliminate any threat to him. Ironically, this is the moment that Macbeth seals his own fate, by murdering Macduff's family he ensures Macduff's retaliation against him, which ultimately leads
Lady Macbeth is really quite insane“Out damned spot! Out, I say!...Yet who would have thought the old man have had so much blood in him?”(Scene 1, act 5)But she isn’t the only one with an unstable mental state .In Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, Macbeth’s mental state quickly deteriorates. We can trace Macbeth's mental deterioration by his actions leading up to his death at the end of scene V, such as when he saw the floating dagger, or when Macbeth sends the three murders to murder his best friend Banquo,and when he started to talk to somebody that nobody else could see at the banquet.
After a long and hard battle, the Sergeant says to King Duncan, “For brave Macbeth,-well he deserves that name,- disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, which smok’d with bloody execution , like valour’s minion carv’d out his passage till he fac’d the slave;” (1.2.16) . This quote shows that Macbeth is viewed as a valiant soldier and a capable leader. However, it does not take long for the real Macbeth to be revealed- a blindly ambitious man, easily manipulated by the prospect of a higher status. His quest for power is what drives his insanity, and after having been deemed the Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth’s ambition can immediately be seen. In a soliloquy, Macbeth says, “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings; my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastica, shakes so my single state of man that function is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is but what is not” (1.3.140). Macbeth has just gained more power, and his immediate thought is of how to gain an even higher status as king. He imagines how to kill Duncan, and then is troubled by his thoughts, telling himself it is wrong. This inner struggle between Macbeth’s ambition and his hesitation to kill Duncan is the first sure sign of his mental deterioration. Although Macbeth does kill Duncan, he questions whether or not he should to do so, which is far different from how Macbeth feels about murder later in the play. Macbeth becomes king, and this power leads
Humans are always fascinated by power. Sadly, they do not realize the danger of it until it is too late. In the play Macbeth, William Shakespeare's underscores how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are both consumed by power. In the beginning, Lady Macbeth dominates Macbeth, manipulating him to kill Duncan. After the death of Duncan, Macbeth becomes ambitious, and hires murderers to kill Banquo without notifying Lady Macbeth. Even though he is a decorated soldier, when Macbeth rises to power, he becomes ruthless. On the other hand, Lady Macbeth becomes weak, and insane. Shakespeare illustrates how Macbeth’s obsession with power undermines his moral judgement, leads to his mental deterioration, and ultimately results in his death.
Macbeth, the main character in William Shakespeare's tragedy, Macbeth was not secure in his manhood. This insecurity led to the downfall of Macbeth because he felt the need to prove himself to Lady Macbeth. After he proved himself by killing Duncan, Macbeth became desensitized to killing.
From the first brief encounter of the witches, to the last nightmarish visions that Macbeth has, many close friends and relatives have died because of his visions with the supernatural. The death of his wife in Act V, Scene IV is the death that sends him over the abyss and into mental instability. Lady Macbeth is like a joined appendage to Macbeth. They work as one, communicate as one, and when that appendage is lost, so is MACBETH's grip with reality. Lady Macbeth was the only person he could truly confide in. The supernatural also had another key factor to her death. In the first act of the play, she calls on the powers of the supernatural to make her strong. The following quote, "Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, stop up the access and passage to remorse… Come to my woman's breasts, and take my milk for gall…", is possibly the most important passage that leads to Lady Macbeth's death. She calls on the evil spirits to "unsex" her, and to replace her "milk" with "gall". It seems that she wants to be the most cruelest being in the world. The theme of the life cycle is amplified in this situation because of her request to the spirits. This event is the beginning of the end for Lady Macbeth's life. She is the one who insists Macbeth should kill the king and reign as the king of Scotland. It is her ideas and plans that lead herself and Macbeth into the pits of hell. She is not solely to blame for this catastrophe though.
A main theme within Macbeth is that the characters experience paranoia when they have committed a guilty action. One obvious example of this is when Macbeth witnesses Banquo’s ghost right after he hears the news that his plan to kill Banquo was a success. When he first see’s the ghost he says, “Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake Thy gory locks at me. ”(3.4.61-2)
These are factors that contribute greatly to both protagonists’ downfall. Macbeth's guilt prevents him from fully enjoying his position as king. Macbeth's guilt begins to consume him, which starts the hallucinations and paranoia. Shakespeare emphasizes this when Macbeth hallucinates that Banquo is in his seat. “Re-enter GHOST OF BANQUO/: Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!/:Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;/:Thou hast no speculation in those eyes/:Which thou dost glare with!”(3.4.94-98). It is obvious that the apparition of Banquo is the embodiment of Macbeth’s guilt, which is why he nearly reveals the truth about King Duncan’s murder. These hallucinations are all because of the burden of his guilt, which leads to his
As the scene opens, Lady Macbeth is reading a letter from her husband. The letter tells of the witches' prophecy for him, which is treated as a certainty, because "I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge". "The perfectest report" means "the most reliable information," so it appears that Macbeth has been asking people what they know about the reliability of witches. If that's the case, he has ignored the advice of Banquo, who is quite sure that witches can't be trusted. But Macbeth seems to trust the witches absolutely, because he is writing to his wife, his "dearest partner of greatness," so that she "mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing". That is, he believes that she has a right to rejoice because she will be a queen. However, Lady Macbeth doesn't rejoice. She is determined that he will be king, but she suspects that he doesn't have the right stuff to do what needs to be done. Speaking to him as though he were really there, she says: "Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o' the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way".
What drove him to become a power hungry tyrant was his wife. She put ideas in his head that changed him. A day before Macbeth would not speak of the idea of killing the king and now he was considering it. By killing the Duncan, gaining the title and king, and not being caught, Macbeth was given an enormous boost. He now felt invincible and let power finally get to him and corrupt him. With this new amount of power, Macbeth was not willing to let it slip away. To protect his power, he did whatever was necessary. Macbeth cowardly had Banquo killed, going against everything he ever believed in. Killing Banquo was not enough for Macbeth. Shakespeare shows to the audience how power can make a person go higher in the world but at the same time make them more vulnerable. Macbeth was now vulnerable, to solve this he sent the murderers to kill Macduff.
Throughout William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, Macbeth experiences some insanity caused by his own wicked decisions. In my opinion the deeper the play gets the more insane Macbeth tends to exceed. Throughout the play Macbeth shows his insanity through his ambition, guilt, and false hopes.
Fear motivates us to do many things, whether they are right or wrong. In the play Macbeth, fear was the main motivation that influenced the outcome of the play. This can be proved by the subsequent murders after Duncan's. Why were these committed? Macbeth was scared of being caught and having to pay for the wrongs he had done. Also, look at Lady Macbeth. The constant washing of her hands, sleepwalking, and other behavior like this is done out of fear. It resembles her husband fear of being caught. The final piece of proof is Macbeth's actions. They were all due to fear, not only of being caught but of the witches' prophecies. He was scared of them coming true and tried to stop them from happening. This whole play was inspired by fear and what it can do to a person.
These ambiguities are iteratively explained, corresponding with the changes in characterization; for example, when the second vision granted to Macbeth by the Weïrd sisters advises him to, “Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth” (4.1.90-92). Upon hearing this, Macbeth appears to simply disregard the earlier prophecy that it will be Banquo’s children, not his own, that will take the throne after him and believes himself to be effectively invincible, which coincides with another shift in Macbeth’s nature, more specifically his growing arrogance that eventually leads to his defeat at the hands of
Google states that the definition of paranoia is “a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system.” The Shakespearean work on Macbeth shows that under the spell of paranoia one becomes obsessed with power they make corrupt decisions. Macbeth can be compared to Stalin because they let paranoia run them, did evil but still were admired and abused their power to achieve their own selfish goals. Macbeth's paranoia resulted in him killing his beloved friends just like stalin killed many people. After Macbeth was told his prophecy he became obsessed over gaining power, he was unable to sleep.
Shakespeare revolved the whole play around Macbeth’s anxiety disorder and panic attacks. Through advanced psychology, a character of unmatched emotions was created during the time. It is illogical to conclude that Macbeth had a very serious anxiety disorder, which was made worse by common panic attacks. The characterization of Macduff is among the strongest and deepest in the history of playwright.