Lady Macbeth Guilt Analysis

The play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, is the story of a fallen hero, Macbeth. Macbeth is a well known and admired noble all throughout Scotland, but one day due to a prophecy bestowed upon him, his ideals grow shrewd and his needs more ambitious, he is accompanied by his wife, also known as Lady Macbeth, who urges and fans his greed for his personal gain. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth share many of the same characteristics when they succumb into complete darkness and when dealing with their guilt. The two characters express their selfish needs and grief through a series of haunting plans and hallucinations. Both Macbeth and lady Macbeth show that they are capable of doing extreme evil and willing to go to no means to achieve their desired

And in Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s case, they both start to hallucinate when coming face to face with their actions. Before Macbeth even commits his first intentional murder, he begins to see a floating knife ahead of him with “dudgeon gouts of blood” (2.1.46), there clearly is no knife floating in front of the noble, but the stress and guilt of the act he is about to commit causes him to see illusions. This is unlike Lady Macbeth who did not seem to have much anxiety when planning for the murders, but soon enough the guilt catches up to her and she too begins to hallucinate. Towards the end of the play Lady Macbeth begins to sleepwalk and hallucinate, she cries out “Out, damned spot!” (5.1.38) referring to her hallucinations, this is similar to Macbeth’s visions as they both see what others cannot, because of the acts they have committed. Lady Macbeth then proceeds to have a mental breakdown and claims that not even “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten [her] little hand.” (5.1.54-55), this is a direct .connection to Macbeth’s hyperbole after he had murdered Duncan, at the time he claimed that “all great Neptune’s ocean” (2.2.59) was insufficient to wash the blood off of his hands, this is also a reoccurring motif throughout the play. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth despite the aura of confidence they give off when actually taking action, they too feel guilt and despair, and this is shown through their mental