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The Guilt of Lady Macbeth
Shakespeare's "Macbeth" holds many hidden themes within its already exuberant plot. The first of these surrounds the murder of Duncan and the role that both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth himself played. However, the true guilt of the murder can fall on either character. Although Macbeth physically committed the crime, it was Lady Macbeth that pushed him to his limits of rational thought and essentially made fun of him to lower his esteem. With Macbeth's defenses down, it was an easy task for Lady Macbeth to influence Duncan's murder and make up an excuse as to why she could not do it herself. The guilt of Duncan's murder can be placed firmly on the head on Lady Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth wants the murder of Duncan for her own gains. Given the present situation, she is power hungry. The wyrd sisters predicted that Macbeth would be king. This means that the obvious result would be Lady Macbeth as queen. Instead of waiting for Duncan to die naturally or to be killed by someone else, she ushers the task to Macbeth. She forces it upon him, which is unfortunate, for he starts a moral character. It is the methods she uses to convince Macbeth that murder is the answer that are extremely cruel and manipulative, sending no doubt that she is the chief culprit in the murder of Duncan, and his death may be put squarely in her hands.
Sex roles in the 1600s were very strict; women were forbidden from acting in theatrical works. Shakespeare seems to play off this in his casting and dialect. The masculinity of Macbeth is questionable in itself, with the provocative language used in the play. He himself is unsure of his "abilities" as a member of the male sex....
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...tions, the use of her "womanly" features, and her attacks on the manliness of Macbeth all put more guilt on her shoulders than Macbeth by far. She deserves no pity either. Her eventual trip to insanity was her own fault, as well as the final battle where Macduff kills Macbeth. Had she shown patience, fate may have eventually worked in Macbeth and her's favor.
Works Cited and Consulted:
Epstein, Norrie. The Friendly Shakepeare, New York, Viking Publishing, 1993.
Schlegel, August Wilhelm. Criticism on Shakespeare s Tragedies . A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. London: AMS Press, Inc., 1965.
Shakespeare, William. Tragedy of Macbeth . Ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Warstine. New York: Washington Press, 1992.
Wills, Gary. Lady Macbeth and Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Anderson, D. (2002). The Columbia guide to the Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press.
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.
Lawrence, Mark Atwood. The Vietnam War: A Concise International History. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ., 2010. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Tragedy of Macbeth . Ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Warstine. New York: Washington Press, 1992.
The Vietnam War was the longest war in America's history of involvement. Twenty years of hell, land mines, cross-fire, and death. Vietnam was divided by the Geneva Accord. The north being communist run by Ho Chi Minh. The south being anti-Communist run by Ngo Dinh Diem. Before Vietnam was separated, it was run by France. France had ruled most of Indochina since the late 1800s. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the way the French were controlling, therefore, many of them took refuge in China. When in China, they began to follow the lead of Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence as that of the U.S. version. In the 1940s, Japan had taken over Vietnam which upset Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries when they had returned a year later.
Moss, G. D. (2010). Vietnam: An American Ordeal (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Retrieved from http://devry.vitalsource.com/books/9781256086260
She also asks them to give her the strength to kill Duncan, she just wants to get on and do it without feeling guilty. At the end of the scene she takes full control of the situation, and Macbeth seems glad to let her have the responsibility.
Guilt plays a strong role in motivating Macbeth, and causes Lady Macbeth to be driven over the edge of sanity - to her death. Throughout the story, there are many different types of guilty feelings that play a role in Macbeth’s fatal decisions and bring Lady Macbeth to commit suicide. Although there are many instances that show the power guilt has played on the main characters, there are three examples that show this the best. One is, just after the murder of the great King, Duncan. Guilt overcomes Macbeth where he can no longer think straight. A second example is soon after that, where all the guilt Macbeth feels at first, changes into hate after he decides that Banquo must be killed as well. The last example is just about at the end of the play, when we see Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, and then later committing suicide; this all because of the burden of her guilt. All of these examples build the proof that in this play, guilt plays a very large role in the characters’ lives.
At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a trusted soldier, who is honest and noble. Unfortunately, he meets three witches who tell him three prophecies; that he will become thane of Cawdor, that he will become king and that Banquo’s sons will become kings. These three prophecies slowly change his opinions on life and turn him into a greedy, dishonest, tyrant, full of ambition. Lady Macbeth’s thoughts change as well when she is told about the three prophecies that were told to Macbeth. In the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth is ambitious, controlling and domineering. She is the one who encourages him to kill the king, she not only encourages him, she makes all the plans herself, which shows her determination and persistence."Yet I do fear thy nature, it is too full o’th milk of human kindness. To catch the nearest way thou wouldst be great. Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it." (Act 1, scene 5). Lady Macbeth is the force behind Macbeth’s sudden ambition and she tries to manipulate him into feeling guilty and unmanly for not following through with the murder, by using her husbands emotions, she manages to convince Macbeth to murder Duncan.
The Vietnam War tore some families apart (Olson). Some families were getting divorced. Being gone for so long can be hard on families and soldiers. The War lasted up to at least 15 years with United States involved. Loved ones were gone and not being able to take care of their families and loved ones. The deployment of loved ones was hard to comp with some families (Logan). Children were sad to see their dad have to leave and not knowing if he will come back. During the war many terrifying images were being showed (Friedman). The images made families and loved ones worried and scared if their loved ones had died (Friedman). The families with soldiers that had lived had to deal with their loved ones having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Logan). Not only do the families have emotions during the war so do the soldiers. Soldiers who had lived were feeling guilt over them living and their friends dying (Friedman). Soldiers were wishing it was them that had died and not one of their brothers. Some soldiers had committed suicide years after war had ended because of the guilt they had felt for living. (Fallstrom). The soldiers didn’t only have emotions after war they had some during war. A war veteran had said “every time I pull the trigger, I was killing a little bit inside me. “ (Friedel).Even knows he wasn’t physically killing a little bit of himself, mentally he was.
After the murder Lady Macbeth says “If he does bleed, ill guild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt” ironically after Duncan’s murder she is haunted by his blood then she goes crazy and eventually kills herself. All of these contribute to the strong theme of guilt and conscience in Macbeth. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the theme of guilt and conscience is one of the most prominent in the play. It gives life to the play and gives depth to the characters, it makes Macbeth a much more realistic character because we are shown that he is not perfect and still responds to temptation.
Lady Macbeth plays an important part in Macbeth’s spiral downwards into becoming a butcher by persuading him to commit his first murder. Macbeth doesn’t want to kill Duncan and has strong doubts about what he should do, as shown by what he says in act I, scene vii,’He’s in double trust here…..i am his kinsman strong against the deed , then as his host, who should against his murderer shut the door, not bear the knife himself’
The Vietnam War was a difficult experience both for the US military as well as its foreign policy. It was unique geographically, ethnically, politically, militarily and diplomatically. Although Johnson inherited a difficult problem from his predecessors, he did step into a trap essentially of his own making. His decision to go to war was reached from hard thought-out reasoning but he did not factor in the environment in Vietnam or the opinion of the American public, resulting in a disastrous war, for the Empire of Liberty, that lasted for over two decades.
After struggling with the thought of killing Duncan, Macbeth is reprimanded by Lady Macbeth for his lack of courage. She informs him that killing the king will make him a man, insinuating that he isn’t a man if he doesn’t go through with the murder. This develops Lady Macbeth as a merciless, nasty, and selfish woman. She will say, or do anything to get what she desires, even if it means harming others. It is this selfishness that makes it hard for the reader to be empathetic towards her later in the play, as it is evident in this scene that her hardships were brought on by herself. If she hadn’t insisted on the murder, she would not be driven in...
Shakespeare, William. Tragedy of Macbeth . Ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Warstine. New York: Washington Press, 1992.