The tragedy of Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, is one of the most revolting and dark pieces of poetry from the Elizabethan time period. The main character, Macbeth, is one that cannot be related to harmony, warmth and peace. This play is filled with bloodshed and continuous felonies. Macbeth approaches his ambition to become king in a negative manner; he commits treason and murders king Duncan. Yet, even though Macbeth continues with his devious and sinister plots, we still feel pity toward poor Macbeth. For the play Macbeth to work as a tragedy, Shakespeare had to maintain our sympathy for a character whose actions become increasingly monstrous. Firstly, Macbeth was not portrayed as a cold-hearted villain at the beginning of the play. …show more content…
A common type of mental illness is paranoia schizophrenia: An illness where a person loses connection with reality. Common Symptoms of this disorder are violence, anxiety, hallucinations and delusions. Throughout the play, Macbeth demonstrated all of these characteristics. For example, he hallucinates more than once in the play: the floating dagger and Banquo’s ghost. While approaching King Duncan’s chamber, Macbeth speaks to himself: “Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible/ To feeling as to sight?” (Shakespeare 2.1.44-45) He believes that there is a floating dagger in front of him, but the audience soon realizes that he is just hallucinating. Macbeth is suffering from lots of mental agony; he is thinking about the witches’ prophecies, the plotted murder of the king, and his ambition of becoming king. We know this because he describes his suffering as, “…a false creation/Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”(Shakespeare 2.1.46-47) In addition, at the banquet, Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost and trembles with fear. Even though no one knows about Banquo’s murder, yet Macbeth exposes that it is not his fault: “Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake/ Thy gory locks at me.”(Shakespeare 3.4. 61-62). Through these lines, we could infer that he is suffering from hallucinations and cannot think effectively. Macbeth suffers from delusions; he believes that everyone is his enemy. For example, Macbeth feels anxiety concerning Banquo: “To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus. /Our fears in Banquo stick deep…” (Shakespeare 3.1. 54-55). Macbeth realizes that Banquo knows too much and the prophecies for Banquo will eventually become true, so he plots to murder him. He fears that Banquo’s children will become king; hence, his position as king is not going to remain for long. Also, the second apparition mentioned to be aware of Macduff, so
Perhaps the most fundamental theme of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the inherent corruptibility of even a seemingly good man when ambition turns to greed, and Macbeth himself exemplifies this concept throughout the play. While at the outset he is seen to be loyal to his king, generally considered trustworthy, and displaying numerous other laudable qualities, Macbeth ultimately succumbs to the influence of those around him and becomes unequivocally evil, setting aside all his previously held morals and coming to be driven only by his lust for power. This transition is brought about by a wide variety of factors and plays an integral role in the development of the plot. In his tragedy Macbeth, William Shakespeare employs
After Macbeth committed a dreadful crime at the start of the play, he realizes that by killing even more people he can get what he wants whenever he wants. Macbeth reaches a point where he is too busy fulfilling his own ambitions that he was not fulfilling his obligations as king. “Those he command move only in command, / Nothing in love…” (5.2.22-23). His obsession with power caused him to murder his good friend Banquo, and Banquo’s son. Macbeth’s out of control ambition has caused him to lose his emotion. He progressively sta...
William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is intense and horrifying, with Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, planning to kill the king so that Macbeth can take his position. Lady Macbeth is the master mind behind all of this. She is in his ear telling him what to do and how to do it. Under all of this pressure from his wife, Macbeth starts to go insane. In the play, Macbeth shows symptoms of bipolar disorder due to his lack of sleep, agitation, and activeness.
Mental illness is a serious societal problem today, and has been for a long time. People who have a mental illness often end up hurting other people mentally and physically. When someone has a mental illness, they might also end up hurting themselves or cause suffering for themselves. Also, it is sometimes difficult for them to understand things clearly, and they might be unsure of things in their life. All of these problems are shown in a person who is mentally ill. Macbeth hears his prophecy from three witches which starts his mental illness, along with Lady Macbeth pressuring him to kill the king. After Macbeth kills the king, things start to get out of hand; Macbeth gets over ambitious and wants to kill more people, whatever it takes. Lady Macbeth asks for her womanhood to be taken so that she will not feel guilty, but ends up feeling more guilty than ever. Subsequently, she kills herself to escape the guilt, and causes her husband great pain. These tragic examples and many others show that mental illness is a societal issue, and it is shown throughout the story of Macbeth.
An insane person is one that demonstrates foolish acts because of their poor mental state. In the beginning of Macbeth, Macbeth is characterized as a brave soldier. His bravery on the battlefield earned him the titles of Thane of Cawdor and Glamis. The play leads the reader to believe that Macbeth is sane, but when he receives prophesy from the witches that he will be king, an insane character emerges from within. Macbeth demonstrates these characteristics when he claims to see a floating dagger and an illusionary ghost and also becomes obsessed with the idea of killing others, and not being completely human. Macbeth displays the characteristics of an insane character because of his foolish acts and poor mental state when he visualizes the floating dagger, speaks to a ghost, becomes obsessed with killing others and with the idea of being invincible.
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.
The last stage of schizophrenia contains hallucinations. When lady Macbeth was sleep walking, she replayed her washing her hands when Macbeth killed the king. “Out damned spot! I say!” (Act 5 scenes 2) This could be a sign of guilt along with her mental illness that starts to control her.
The tragedy Macbeth by William Shakespeare is based on a thane in whom is corrupted by greed and a negative ambition. The character Macbeth contradicts his moral responsibility in this play a great deal; many moral questions are brought forth to Macbeth. He questions himself and whether or not he should follow through with the evil deeds that he does. Macbeths ambition causes him to compromise his honour, he doesn’t take into consideration that he is being trusted and that every action that he takes will have a reaction. Macbeth attains his position as king unjustly. As is evident by the conclusion, justice prevails as usual and Macbeths demise is a result of his evil deeds.
While the diagnosis of mental conditions is considered a modern practice, people throughout history have suffered similar mental illnesses but have gone undocumented or unstudied. But even without scientific or psychological records, mental illness can clearly be derived from historical figures and works of art. As early as the 1600s, characters in literary pieces are known to depict characteristics of modern mental labels. During this time period, mental illnesses were generally credited to witchcraft or demonic possession. Though the explanations seem farfetched, the symptoms of what are now seen as neurological disruptions remain the same. In William Shakespeare’s seventeenth century play Macbeth, several characters portray indications of what could be the modern diagnosis schizophrenia.
And immediately we are brought to tragedy and what the concept of a hero is. In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, the character of Macbeth murders his king, Duncan, for personal motives, there appears to be little subjective reasoning for the murder. This perhaps encapsulates the notion of an incident which has the potential to arise pity from an audience. The reader begins to pity Macbeth despite the obvious character flaws of greed and corruption. Shakespeare manipulates the audience to react sympathetically towards Macbeth through the use of Macbeth's actions, dialogue, and passion.
In the play of “Macbeth”, Shakespeare gradually and effectively deepens our understanding of the themes and most importantly the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The main theme of Macbeth is ambition, and how it compels the main characters to pursue it. The antagonists of the play are the three witches, who symbolise the theme appearance and reality. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relation is an irony throughout the play, as most of their relation is based on greed and power. This is different from most of Shakespeare’s other plays, which are mostly based on romance and trust. There is also guilt that leads Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to the final consequences of the play. As the progresses, the constant changes in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are exposed.
Macbeth shows signs of serious mental deterioration when he sees a dagger appear before him, but doesn’t understand if it’s real or not (II, i, 35-40), later on in his speech he says his other senses made his eyes look foolish or they are the only trustworthy senses (II, I, 44-46)
Macbeth is a brave general who fights for his country Scotland, defeating the King of Norway. He is loyal to his king Duncan, but Macbeth has ambition to take over the kingdom for himself. He has lots of doubts of if he is doing the right thing, but still murders Duncan and then Banquo who is another general who fought with Macbeth. These murders and guilt about his treason are leading Macbeth to become insane. This essay shows that although Macbeth’s strong desire for power is influenced by the three witches in the play and also the planning and ambition of his wife Lady Macbeth, in the end he is responsible for his self-destruction.
Shakespeare uses the title character of Macbeth to effectively develop the theme of guilt and conscience in his play. Several times in the play we see Macbeth’s character crumbling as a result of a guilty conscience. At the beginning of the play he meets the witches with Banquo, and this prompts the first step toward killing the King. This helps in developing the theme because we get the idea that Macbeth does not trust the witches, nor does he fully believe them. Unfortunately his ambitious nature gets the better of him and causes him to listen carefully to how he might acquire his kingship. Macbeth feels guilty that he is thinking about killing the King because he’s basing his entire thought upon belief in the ‘evil creatures’. We see this when Macbeth has a soliloquy in which he says, “Cannot be ill, cannot be good” and also asks himself why the thought of becoming King makes his “seated heart” knock against his ribs.
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” explores a fundamental struggle of the human conscience. The reader is transported into the journey of a man who recognizes and acknowledges evil but still succumbs to its destructive powers. The character of Macbeth is shrouded in ambiguity that scholars have claimed as both being a tyrant and tragic hero. Macbeth’s inner turmoil and anxieties that burden him throughout the entire play evoke sympathy and pity in the reader. Though he has the characteristics of an irredeemable tyrant, Macbeth realizes his mistakes and knows there is no redemption for his sins. And that is indeed tragic.