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Lady Macbeth Guilt Essay

720 Words3 Pages

The play Macbeth by William Shakespeare has many different characters with many different emotions. In the play, the main themes of the play are guilt, fate, and allegiance. The character that shows the most guilt is Lady Macbeth. She is Macbeth’s wife and deals with a large amount of guilt and remorse. Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. In order to become king, he has to murder the current king with the help of his wife. Lady Macbeth is a very cold-blooded, strong character that also has a weak side to her. Throughout the course of the play, Lady Macbeth goes through quite a few emotions including fear, anger, and unhappiness.To start off, fear was one of the emotions that Lady …show more content…

She was scared that the guilt she had would never go away. “Out, damned spot, out, I say” (Shakespeare 5.1.31). When Lady Macbeth says “Out, damned spot, out,” she is saying how she wants the blood off her hands. Meaning she is feeling responsible for killing Duncan. Therefore, Lady Macbeth has her downsides in the play also. Parts where she genuinely feels guilty. Even though Lady Macbeth is a strong, cruel, and cold-blooded character in the play, she does feel remorse. In Act 3, Lady Macbeth starts to feel guilty of what she has done to Duncan. She pulls Macbeth from dinner and tells him how guilty she is feeling. As a result, Lady Macbeth starts the play out feeling confident and she is perfectly fine with the plan of murdering Duncan with her husband. After Lady Machbeth starts feeling afraid, she eventually gets diagnosed with insomnia and eventually dies. To sum it up, Lady Macbeth goes through a hard time that results in a remorseful …show more content…

“Naught's had, all's spent, Where our desire is got without content” (Shakespeare 3.2.5-6). Lady Macbeth isn’t as happy as she thought she would be as the queen. She’s disappointed with how her life is turning out to be. Secondly, she is unhappy about being a female. In Act 1, Lady Macbeth states that she wants to be unsexed. “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here” (Shakespeare 1.5.39-40). Lady Macbeth asked her spirits to unsex her. She wants the “weakness” associated with being a female to go away. She much rather be in control than her husband that is scared to kill. She wants to be a man so she can feel stronger. To conclude, Lady Macbeth definitely goes through a lot of unhappiness throughout the play and she goes through a little bit of a depressive

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