Lady Macbeth's Guilt

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca’s quotation, “Every guilty person is his own hangman,” is perfect in describing how guilt can alter a person’s demeanor. Macbeth is one of the many pieces of literature in today’s world that this applies to. In the notorious play, written by William Shakespeare, death happens left and right because of the protagonist, Macbeth. Although Macbeth starts out as a leader whom everyone loves, Lady Macbeth is the one to begin his killing spree by forcing him to kill for an excessive amount of power, who will later feel guilty. Lady Macbeth shows that there are different stages of guilt that can eventually lead to a person’s demise. Lady Macbeth is introduced as a power-hungry monster that doesn’t care about the well being …show more content…
Macbeth is currently king at this point in the play and is frightened about his reputation being ruined. Banquo and his son are his next victims since Macbeth is under the assumption that Banquo is suspicious of him and Banquo’s son, Fleance, was also prophesized to be king. His wife is now trying to persuade him out of committing a murder that will only lead him into becoming the miserable killer he will be. “If he had been forgotten, it had been as a gap in our great feast, and all-thing becoming” (III.i.12-14). The town is holding a feast for Banquo, the night Macbeth plans to murder him; Lady Macbeth says the feast would be meaningless. Her idea fell through and was unsuccessful, causing the death of Banquo and Macbeth evolving into a more evil …show more content…
A doctor comes to visit her after a gentlewoman reports her to be sleep walking very often ever since Macbeth went to war. Later on in the scene, Lady Macbeth is sleep walking and is having a nightmare at the same time. She envisions herself unable to wash off blood from her hands: “…will these hands ne’er be clean?” (V.i.44). Lady Macbeth believes that she is unable to ‘wash the blood off of her hands’, which represents getting rid of her guilt from all of the previous murders. Earlier on in the play Macbeth had this same problem and now the couple has swapped places because she is the one who is
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