Guilt and Madness in Shakespeare

Guilt and Madness in Shakespeare.

-Lady MacBeth-

Several of Shakespeare's plays explore the concept of insanity. Some of the playwright's characters are truly mad, while others merely assume the appearance of madness.

But today we're going to talk about how guilt can drive anyone mad if they let it.

The story MacBeth is a perfect example of this. MacBeth and his lady did many things in the play to have a mind full of guilt.

MacBeth just handled it better than Lady MacBeth did; she broke under the pressure of a guilty conscience and she let the guilt take her like a disease. 

In the play MacBeth and Lady MacBeth had a desire to be king and queen of Scotland.

Lady MacBeth devised a to kill the king in his sleep so her husband, MacBeth, could gain the title as king.

They proceeded with the and MacBeth became king.

After sometime has past, Lady MacBeth realized she had all that she wanted and still was not happy.

Lady MacBeth also felt responsible for his acts, so she drove her self-crazy.

She started sleeping walk, talking mad, and sheding tears that no one else understood.

She then killed her self because the guilt was too much to handle.

Even though MacBeth didn't show many signs of the guilt building inside him, at a conference that he held, the ghost of his former friend Banquo haunted him. The guilt just came to MacBeth other ways than it did to Lady MacBeth.

Even though MacBeth and Lady MacBeth had a lot of guilt from evil things they've done in the past, MacDuff was covered with guilt as well.

MacDuff went away to England to gather forces to stand a front against MacBeth but in the process left his family behind at home where they were slaughtered.

MacDuff was full of guilt for leaving his loved ones behind to be killed by MacBeth. From then on MacDuff swore to take revenge on his families deaths.

He vowed to kill MacBeth by his own blade. Eventually he does, which opened a new door of guilt. He murdered another human being. Even though his motives were good. It was still murder.

No matter who you are and no matter what title you have, guilt can take over anyone.

You could have good or bad intentions, but guilt could sneak up on you, anyway.

You could handle your guilt well like MacBeth or you could handle it like Lady MacBeth but it's still there.

Guilt can ultimately drive a person mad and lead to their down fall, as it did in the play by William Shakespeare, MacBeth.