Consequences Depicted In Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'

Julia Martin Ms. Frank CP English II April 10, 2017
Consequences
Can we do something we know is wrong and escape the consequences? As humans we are unable to commit a wrong act without consequence. It may not be an obvious consequence, such as jail time, but there is always a consequence for doing something wrong.
The biggest consequence someone faces is guilt. When the play Macbeth starts, Lady
Macbeth is the strongest force in her marriage to Macbeth. She had such an influence on him that she was able to convince Macbeth to kill King Duncan, even though he didn’t want to. After Macbeth killed Duncan, Lady Macbeth acted as though everything was okay and calmed Macbeth’s nerves, because she knew that now she would become queen and Macbeth would

In Macbeth’s case, he became cold and numb to emotion. At first, after he had killed King Duncan, he became paranoid that someone would find out the truth behind what had actually happened, asking Lady Macbeth “Didst thou not hear a noise” (II.ii.20), even though there was no noise to be heard. After gaining more power in Scotland and becoming king, he began to shy away from these emotions. Nowhere is this more obvious than when we talk about his relationship with Banquo.
Banquo had been Macbeth’s best friend for life. Macbeth even told him that “if you

Once Macbeth felt that his kingship was being threatened by Banquo, he ordered that his servants kill Banquo “and with him...Fleance, his son that keeps him company”(III.ii.154), without even thinking about the truth behind what he was doing: murdering his long time best friend. ***
Macbeth’s relationships also began to change as a result of his personality changing, most specifically his relationship with his wife, Lady Macbeth. As he began to become more focused on holding onto his power, he began to ignore Lady Macbeth, quite possibly when she needed his attention the most. When Macbeth hears a noise and asks “wherefore was that cry”(V.v.18), Seyton, Macbeth’s attendant, replies with “the Queen, my lord, is dead”(V.v.19). Upon finding
Martin 3 out that his wife had just killed herself, Macbeth simply replies with “she should have died hereafter”(V.v.20), simply meaning that it would have happened sometime soon anyway, and then he went about his business of planning how he was going to defeat Macduff and his army. At this point in time, Macbeth had changed so much that he no longer cared that his wife, who had become his partner in crime and one of the few people he could still turn to, had died because she could no longer take how crazy her life had