Macbeth is a tragedy, about a man named Macbeth whose ambition for power becomes his obsession. His wife, Lady Macbeth was the spark to his ambitious flame, her thoughts and encouragement led her down a path of uncontrollable guilt. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were in too deep, they both did not picture their future as blood stained as it was. Lady Macbeth talked Macbeth into killing the king, so Macbeth would become the next king of Scotland. That was the spark that caused Macbeth to turn into a bloodthirsty maniac. Lady Macbeth became plagued with Guilt, but Macbeth’s guilt left him and never returned. In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth’s desire for power and her eventual regret to show how a guilty conscience can lead a person to their own demise.
Lady Macbeth was a greedy and ambitious woman, whose desire for power caused her to become an evil and malicious person. She became power hungry craving the power that was not hers to have. She led her husband to kill the king, when he didn’t really want to kill Duncan “We will proceed no further in this business”(Shakespeare 16) Macbeth puts his foot down and made it clear that Duncan was not to be killed by his hand. Duncan was his friend, who promoted Macbeth to Thane of Cawdor just the day before. But Lady Macbeth’s ambition led Macbeth to kill his friend. She told him how much she loved him, she loved him so much that she would kill her own child for his love, Macbeth began to break. Lady Macbeth went on with her malicious deeds to tell Macbeth, he is not a man enough to kill Duncan “When you Durst do it, then you were a man.” (Shakespeare 17). Macbeth finally gave in to his wife and decided to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeths methods worked, Duncan was killed. Macbeth was crowned as king. The guilt began slowly consuming Lady Macbeth.
Because of Lady Macbeth’s evil and violent acts, she becomes induced by her guilt. Her constant thought of how she became queen plagues her. Lady Macbeth became very nervous and timid when she received the crown. She became scared that someone was going to kill her, which made her scared of the dark and what lies there, “she has light by her continually” (Shakespeare 69). Lady Macbeth’s guilty conscience consumed her. She began sleepwalking and confessing her evil deeds out loud for all her servants to hear, saying that “old man … had so much blood in him” (Shakespeare 70). As she sleepwalks, she would wash her hands constantly, she confessed she still had the “smell of the blood” (Shakespeare 70) on her hands. This showed how she was trying to wash her hands free of her guilt. She was in to0 deep, her evil acts lead her to an unhappy life. Lady Macbeth embodies the idea that a guilty conscience can make a person do unimaginable acts.
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Lady Macbeth’s conscience ruled over her. She becomes very depressed and nervous, constantly thinking that someone is out to kill her. Her guilt lives with her, she cannot get rid of it. Her final act to extinguish the guilt is suicide “The queen .. is dead” (Shakespeare 76). Her guilty conscience got to her so much that she killed herself so she would not have to live with the guilt anymore. This shows that a guilty conscience can destroy a person. Most people cannot live with guilt on their conscience, it causes them to do things that they would have never done. As in Lady Macbeth’s case, she did not kill anyone, but because of her ambitions and need for power led her to make her husband kill a man. Lady Macbeth’s conscience became blood stained, something she could not live with. The act of doing something against her conscience proved too much for her. Guilt consumes people’s conscience and slowly ends in their own demise.
