Role Of Fear In Macbeth

he is scared of the thing he has just committed and knows if he thinks about it he will be overrun by negative, dangerous thoughts. Macbeth’s fear completely contrasts his wife who continues to portray that she has no problem with guilt and helps clean up after Macbeth. As the play progresses Macbeth’s guilt and fear will transform his anxious mind into an unhealthy tyrant willing to do anything to keep his position in power.
Lady Macbeth’s current guilt free mind takes dominance to cleanse her husband’s ill mind of the cruel act they have planned and done together. While she is alone, anxiously waiting for Macbeth to come back, she sits nervously afraid that he might not be doing it right. As her husband is scared and uneasy she makes it her job to convince him he must forget about what they have done and that it is no big deal. She is the mastermind behind the deed and feels she must clean up after Macbeth’s mistakes by taking the daggers back to the crime scene. “My hands are of your color, but I shame/to wear a heart so white” (2.2.82-83), she knows she is as much involved as he is but she will not let her weakness show, practically calling

her own husband a coward for feeling emotion about the situation. Lady Macbeth exclaims a little water to wash away the blood will clear them of this deed presenting once again her mind is free of guilt.
Once Macbeth kills Duncan, a drastic change in his behavior starts to occur, he has turned his guilt into power thirsty actions which ultimately leads to his demise in the end. Macbeth realizes he will not keep his position of power with Banquo in the way. With his decision to murder Banquo, Macbeth experienced horrible anxiety and guilt by seeing the ghost of Banquo coming back to taunt him, even though he did not commit the murder himself. Gradually a shift in his mental state occurs:
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good
All causes shall give way; I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er (3.4.166-169)
he now believes he is in too deep to turn back now and his crimes only becomes worse from there. With evidence of further plans, “we are yet but young in deed” (3.4.175). Once Macbeth has Macduff’s innocent wife killed, everything falls out of place and sets Macbeth up for his own death by Macduff. With the death of his wife Macbeth shows almost no emotion towards the news, he is no longer the loving and caring man she had once married. He is a ruthless, bloodthirsty tyrant willing to do anything to keep his position as king. After the death of his wife and the fact that his people now suspect him of his murders, he feels he has nothing left to live for and accepts his fate.
Similarly, Lady Macbeth became overwhelmed with guilt, which lead her to mental instability and later to her suicide.

From the beginning of act 5 she is not sleeping soundly, she proceeds to sleep walk, revealing her guilt in her uneasy sleep. “Out, dammed spot! Out, I say! One; two: why,/then ‘tis time to do’t” (5.1.32-33), she still sees the blood on her hands from the murder of Duncan and it is haunting her. She is now aware that her husband is the one who killed Banquo and Macduff’s wife and she felt responsible for creating such a monster out of her own husband. This is the last time we hear from Lady Macbeth, since all of this on her mind as well as losing the husband she once had is too much for her to handle, and her guilt took control of her mental health which resulted in her own

suicide.
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have both shown their guilt inversely throughout the play which lead to both of their deaths in the end, reflecting on how Shakespeare views human nature and human conscience. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s guilt are almost a complete reverse of each other. While Lady Macbeth feels strong and guiltless in the beginning and Macbeth feels anxious and scared the two switch roles and Macbeth becomes the power hungry killer. In the long run they are both overcome with their current and previous guilt from before, during and after they kill king Duncan together. This guilt from their poor action would remain with them forever, and happiness would no longer emerge from the depts of their despair and both are left perished in the end.