Macbeth Insanity Analysis

“The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood is stopped; the very source of it is stopped” (2.3.77-78). Macbeth murders the guards to prevent them from professing their innocence, affirming their intention to avenge the king in a fit of rage for his misdeeds. Duncan 's children; Malcolm and Donalbain, flee to England and Ireland, respectively, for fear that the killer of Duncan wishes the death of both also. Macbeth has killed Duncan who is his cousin. “Where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles.

He compromises his honor and negates moral responsibility to attain power and position which results in his tragic end. From the beginning, Macbeth was faced with choices and he continuously kept on making bad ones. The witches vision for the future of him becoming king together with his ambition drove Macbeth to commit a crime, make a choice that would then continue to haunt him forever. With significant influence from Lady Macbeth, he decided to take action and murder King Duncan. We see him consider his choice to kill Duncan in soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 7 “If it were done”.

He tries to save himself but still Macduff and others are suspicious of him. Macduff eventually kills Macbeth because he believes that he unjustly killed the kings and his family. Lady Macbeth is under so much guilt that she throws herself off the balcony and commits suicide. Killing seem as though it is not the way to go, it causes many problems that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth decided to endure after killing. After killing, guilt follows you like a shadow, following you every move, never

The first murder of King Duncan only sealed Macbeth’s paranoia and served as a foundation for the murders of Banquo and Macduff’s family. After the first murder, Macbeth feels a colossal amount of guilt and shame. After the murder of Banquo, he feels that it is not enough since Fleance escaped, developing his guilt and shame of harming others into a fear for his own safety; a devastating degradation. However, during the assassination of Macduff’s family, Macbeth gives the command immediately without thought and without a trace of remorse after doing so. This thereby concludes his psychological downfall as he no longer feels guilty, ashamed, or fears

These are not considered evil until he caves into the temptation of power (Gimelli Martin 165). His weakness is shown when he makes the decision to murder King Duncan and secures the position as king. He even goes as far to murder his friend, Banquo, because he feels uneasy about his suspicions (182-183). At this point in the story he is even comparable to Satan, “Like Satan, Macbeth becomes the chief equivocator in his own hell, unwittingly uttering objective truths to his subjects even while telling subjective lies.” (183). An example of this is when Macbeth becomes king but cannot trust his own friends and allies.

The supernatural motivates Macbeth comprehensively, to the extent that he murders King Duncan, Banquo and Macduff 's family. It galvanises him to do things that otherwise he would have thought were ludicrous. Firstly, the witches prophecies stimulated Macbeth to kill the ones he loves, as a consequence losing friends that were loyal to him. Additionally, Banquo 's ghost caused Macbeth to feel guilt and fear, causing him to rely on the witches’ predictions and having a false feeling of security. Finally, the vision of a bloody dagger that appeared right before the murder encouraged Macbeth to kill King Duncan.

When he is notified about his father’s death he goes through an instant rage. During his rage Laertes enters the Kings castle and threatens to kill him. He says “Where is this King?-Sirs, stand you all without.” (Shakespeare.122) Laertes doesn’t take his time to research the murder of his dad. Laertes just assumes it is the King who has killed his father, so he seeks revenge on the King without realizing the consequences he may suffer in result. Laertes is not as introspective, after a while he just wants to get the revnge

As Macbeth commits murders, he loses his value for life based on the amount of time between murders, which ultimately reflects on his change as a person. The first time Macbeth is going to kill someone, he is scared and reluctant. Macbeth begins to hallucinate,“Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?” (2.1.37-40). Macbeth is scared to kill Duncan, and doesn’t want to do it.

Hamlet aspires to be like Pyrrhus in the way that he is cruel to his father’s murderer and is able to avenge him quickly. Furthermore, Hamlet feels compelled by both Heaven and Hell because he feels as if his father came down asking for vengeance for his own death even though Hamlet is unable to deliver. Though Hamlet thought about killing Claudius immediately, he also thinks of the negative consequences of revenge rather than the positive ones which puts him at a standstill, “cursing like the whore he is”. As the play progresses through the plot, Hamlet experiences an epiphany after observing Fortinbras, expressing, “Why yet I live to say “this thing's to do”, / Sith

His regret of the murder shows the transformation of Macbeth’s attitude: he lets his remorse overpower him to the point of madness. The voices he hears that threaten: “Macbeth shall sleep no more” indicate a relationship between guilt and madness. Therefore, the manifestation of the dagger suggests that he feels guilty because of his attempt to murder Duncan. There are three major transitions of thought. First, he contemplates about the dagger’s existence; the second is the invocations of dark images; finally, there is the bell that cuts off Macbeth’s contemplations.