Mental illness in Renaissance England was a very harsh subject. It was a horrid time to be considered mentally ill, for the insane were thrown into prison like asylums meant to protect them. There was little understanding of insanity, causing anyone to be considered abnormal by regular social standards to be cast into an asylum. However, mental illness in women was treated much differently than with men, and even then the medical treatments were cruel and unforgiving. Because of this understanding of mental health during the time period, Lady Macbeth’s mental illness was hugely misdiagnosed and misunderstood. Understanding the mind in the sixteenth and seventeenth century was tricky. People deemed insane or mentally ill had two options. They …show more content…
Because of the compassion she so desperately wanted to be rid of, she could not commit murder. When Macbeth begins to reveal his hallucinations to his wife, she calls him weak. This reflects how people viewed the mentally ill. Even though Macbeth had fallen into insanity, Lady Macbeth would soon fall even further into it. In the final act of Macbeth, a considerable amount of time has passed since the first signs of her descent into mental illness. By this time, Lady Macbeth is afraid of the dark and is sleepwalking. Every night she reenacts washing her hands clean of murder. She goes to the wash bin to scrub her hands raw. Lady Macbeth has fallen into the insanity of guilt. Moving back to mental health, Hysteria was a growing ailment in this time period. It was recognized as a predominant female malady. It was also known as the “suffocation of the mother”. Symptoms arose from displacement from the womb, according to physicians. It had horrible effects that included fits of breathlessness and unconsciousness that mimicked possession and bewitchment. Although they were quite ineffective, the cures for hysteria included: counseling, proper diet, and even sheer
“Mass Hysteria in Upstate New York” The general argument made by Ruth Graham in “Mass Hysteria in Upstate New York” is that cases of large groups of people becoming suddenly ill have surfaced because of a massive panic occurring. More specifically, Graham reasons that a large group of teenage girls experienced Tourette’s like symptoms due to mass hysteria. Graham writes, “Typically, symptoms-which can include Brownell’s Tourette’s-like movements, along with nausea, dizziness, cramping, and more-start with one or two victims and spread when others see or hear about them” (1).
A women was diagnosed with hysteria if she displayed emotional or mental distress. Medical experts up until the 20th century considered the disease to be the womb rebelling against sexual deprivation. To put it simply, many women were sexually frustrated. The solution? Massaging the genitals to provoke “hysterical paroxysm” also known as, an orgasm.
All together, eight girls were affected by these disturbing fits, which included: Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, Betty Parris, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Warren, Betty Pope and Mary Walcott (Magoon 39). These eight girls all had similar symptoms including, “lethargy, seizures, temporary paralysis, and distraction. Their skin showed bite marks and pinches; they also felt pinpricks. The girls were observed cursing uncontrollably, barking, and with their eyes rolling back and to the sides. At times, their arms and legs twisted.
Additionally, Lady Macbeth’s participation in the murder of King Duncan drives her insane,”Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!”(V.i.37). Lady Macbeth's call to demons to fill her soul with evil did not protect her from the from the consequences of her actions. The decay of Lady Macbeth’s sanity is Shakespeare's warning to the audience not to act out of selfishness for one cannot see the consequences in store when one acts rashly for self
Shakespeare, like any other man in the 16th and 17th century, saw ambitious and dominant women as evil and even disturbing or disturbed. From Macbeth, we can see Shakespeare feels women should be challenged and punished because they are trying to change society. Nowadays these ambitious and dominant women are regarded as brave and respected because of their ambition, such as Lady Macbeth’s ambition to become Queen. Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as mentally disturbed.
Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, is a play that mainly focuses on one common theme of insanity. Macbeth gradually becomes plagued by intense guilt as his desire for power drives him to attain his goals by any means necessary, including committing murder. He kills Duncan in cold blood in order to become King, has Banquo killed by three murderers because he wishes to maintain his position as King, and finally, he has Macduff’s family slaughtered. Each of these occurrences takes place because of Macbeth’s will to be King, or they are a result of his guilt. Nonetheless, they are all completed of his free will, which is what causes him to deteriorate mentally.
One of Shakespeare’s superlative examples of a troubled mind is located in Macbeth. The impertinent character Lady Macbeth exhibited many symptoms of depression and antisocial personality disorder. While mental illness is generally developed through an accumulation of several events, as it was in Lady Macbeth’s case, it was definitely more profound after the murder of King Duncan. Prior to killing the king, Lady Macbeth unveiled sociopathic behavior through her negligence of others.
It becomes hard to recognize her as the story progresses, sleepwalking through the castle and constantly rubbing her hands as she attempts to remove the innocent blood shed on her hands driven by her guilt-ridden mind. Lady Macbeth is unable to surpass the evil she has set on herself and in the end; the guilt she prayed against became her worst enemies. She was beyond repair and it lead to her suicide. Furthermore, in the yellow wallpaper the protagonist becomes mentally ill for being locked in a room deprived of life. The majority of the story takes place in a room which only induces pain deep within herself evoking negative mental thoughts.
“Betty Parris, aged ten, is lying on the bed, inert.” (Miller, 3) The unconscious daughter of Reverend Parris exemplifies how epilepsy left untreated can lead to Betty’s state. “He [the doctor] cannot discover no medicine for it in his books.” (Miller, 9) As explained before, the resources were very limited and there was not much knowledge in those times.
Bryanna E. McCool Mrs. Dean British Literature 25 January 2018 Mental Illness in Shakespeare’s Macbeth The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, a play wrought with prophecies, deception, guilt, and death, brings light to the symptoms of mental illnesses and their effects on the human brain’s ability to reason, trust, and act in times of pressure. Both Macbeth and his lady are plagued by mental illness, and the effects of their illness only grow as the play evolves. Macbeth’s symptoms of schizophrenia and anxiety, as well as Lady Macbeth’s anxiety as well as hallucinations that eventually push her to suicide prove that not only can mental illness alter the way a person sees a situation, but it can also drive them to harm others and themselves.
Attempting to find the cause of Macbeth’s descent into insanity, many have blamed certain characters and circumstances for Macbeth’s downfall. However, using motifs such as gender roles and the supernatural, Shakespeare shows that the cause of Macbeth’s loss of humanity and downfall was Lady Macbeth’s failure to conform to gender roles. Lady Macbeth resists the gender
There are many people in the world that experience mental problems and therefore affecting their personality. Not everyone though is as bad as Macbeth when it comes to mental deterioration. Macbeth is a very self-centered man and it leads him to change the person he once was. Although it is not seen much in the beginning of Shakespeare's play “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, Macbeth’s mental state deteriorates as the play progresses, which can be seen when he is guilty of murdering King Duncan, being taunted by the ghost of Banquo, and his speech to the witches.
The play, Macbeth, shows the among between sanity and insanity and the struggle between reason and delusion. Throughout this whole play, Macbeth slips into a state of lunacy slowing turning into a psychopath. The basis of understanding the play is through the first murder, King Duncan. Macbeth’s other two assassinations are just used as efforts to secure his throne. He begins accepting the evil inside him and succumbing to the temptation to murder and insanity.
By the end of the play, Lady Macbeth realized the consequences her and her husband are going through. She tried to save her out of control relationship by drawing him from plotting. However, she was too weakened by her own psychological guilt that left her drained and was unable to stop Macbeth. In fact, due to her guilt of taking part of the murdering, she started sleepwalking and having delirious visions. These visions make her believe she has blood on her hands that can’t was off, symbolizing what’s done cannot be undone.
Lady Macbeth descends into insanity caused by lack of sleep and guilt. Using Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare supports his time period’s ideals of keeping women only in submissive roles. Shakespeare also allows the witches to possess a large amount of power, and these witches similar to Lady Macbeth use their power for corruption and destruction. The witches, “should be women, /And yet [their] beards forbid” that conclusion and betray their overruling masculine qualities and lack of feminine