Lady Macbeth's Imagination

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“Macbeth” is one of the most widely read and discussed plays written and shown by William Shakespeare, and one of the biggest reasons why is perhaps Macbeth’s imagination and how it influences the play itself. His imagination leads him to feel many conflicting emotions about killing King Duncan and about becoming the king. The chain of events leading up to Scene 4 of Act 2 shows just how conflicting his emotions are and how they influence him as time goes on, and how it affects even some of the characters around him, especially Lady Macbeth. There are especially three noticeable bouts of his imagination that obviously affected the events that would transpire throughout the first two acts.

In “Macbeth, an example of how his imagination …show more content…

He is dazed and shaken, with hands soaked in blood. Lady Macbeth questions him, and he shakily explains that the chamberlains awoke from their drunken slumber to recite their prayers and, despite his wanting to say amen, the word caught in his throat and he could not utter it. He also tells his wife that he heard a voice cry out, “Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep!” While Lady Macbeth does not have much time to dwell on this, as she must hurry and place the daggers with the chamberlains, it is obvious that Macbeth’s strong imagination has influenced how he felt about the murder before and how he feels towards it …show more content…

Banquo is seen thinking hard about his own prophecy, but shows that he is truly a man by avoiding the thought of following through with it; Macbeth is portrayed as weak and not as manly as Banquo, seeing as he has no self control when it comes to a moral issue such as killing one’s king to gain power. Macbeth’s imagination plays itself when he thought of unbalancing nature: he at first thought of the consequences of committing the crime, but then decides the risks of not committing it outweigh the risks of doing it. The next example of his strong imagination is his vision after speaking with Banquo, a vision that conveys just how unnerved he really is by the thought of killing the king, and yet he cannot stop himself. And even after the deed is committed, his imagination once again runs wild as he fears the “voice” that claims he murdered sleep after killing Duncan, and how he fears that he is no longer under God’s grace because he is unable to say amen. There are especially three noticeable bouts of his imagination that obviously affected the events that would transpire throughout the first two

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