Macbeth

Evan Ganz

Mrs. Jenner

English 3 Period 2

3/23/16

Macbeth is a story that perfectly portrays the aspects of betrayal, greed and madness. He comes off as a brave and capable war hero that can conquer anything that stands in his way. But when he reaches his interaction with the 3 witches and they show him his prophecy of him becoming king, he begins to have these feelings of ambition and self doubt. Throughout the play he struggles with these emotions and shakespeare depicts what awful things can happen to a man dealing with intention and guilt while also having lack of character. There has been psychopaths, mad men, lunatics or whatever you’d like to call them for as long as people can remember, and Macbeth ends up fitting into that category. But it's not like these people harm or kill people just for the hell of it. I believe that a man/woman only commits such a horrible crime because of the manner of their upbringing and their surroundings. Macbeth was fine with letting all his success come naturally and fairly until he was pushed to do it a more cynical way by his wife, Lady Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth is one of the most powerful female characters in literature. She is a very dangerous woman considering she is more ruthless, careless and ambitious than most of the men in that era, especially her husband. She has a burning ambition to become queen once she finds out about the witches prophecy for macbeth but cannot do anything about it herself because she is a woman. So to attain the title of queen she hassles macbeth with always questioning his manhood or his love for her if he doesn't do the things that his wife wants him to do. Because she shares such manly attributes in her psychology, you can agree that in the play Lady macbeth is great at showing no emotion, which a woman usually does, and the reader can never really tell what she is thinking. Just like when Macbeth and his wife supposedly found out that duncan was dead the next day after they killed him, Lady Macbeth faints when she hears the news, but is it genuine? Since they have a lot going on at the time with all the things they are trying to scheme, it's hard to believe that Lady Macbeth feels no guilt or shame about it, causing her mental state to be weary. But in an article about the psychology of both macbeth and lady macbeth it states.”Lady Macbeth protects her sanity for a time denying the enormity of her crime. Yet, she understands the lurking danger: ‘These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will drive us mad’ (2.2 30-31). Davis believes that Lady Macbeth's fainting in act II Scene III is real; unconsciousness offers temporary relief from remorse.” (Rosenblum, Joseph)So even though she tries to ignore the awful things that she’s been apart of, it can be true that her conscious and subconscious clashed at that moment causing her to begin to lose sanity. When Macbeth begins to hallucinate banquo's ghost in the banquet scene in act III, Lady Macbeth upbraided her husband's behavior and then continues to indicate that it's just one of his usual “episodes” and sends the guest away. She then states to macbeth “You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting with most admired disorder…He grows worse and worse; Question enrages him. At once, good night. Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once. (Act III, Scene IV, lines 109-110, 118-121). She is only able to do this by stifling her consciousness and remaining calm but this can only last so long , because this soon shows to be her demise. As Macbeth's actions show he is starting to lose his mind more and more, his wife's defense begins to fall and she has nowhere to divulge her guilt. This causes her to drift into the sleepwalking state in scene 5 and the constant washing of her hands symbolizes her want to get rid of that guilt. Instead she falls into a state of deep depression and ends up taking her own life.

A well known mental case that relates to her is the cult leader Charles Manson. For example Charles manson strived for power, in an article it states “He was described by probation reports as suffering from a ‘marked degree of rejection, instability and psychic trauma’ and ‘constantly striving for status and securing some kind of love.’ Other descriptions included ‘unpredictable’ and ‘safe only under supervision.”(Rosenberg, Jennifer) Similar to Charles, she uses the method of persuasion to instill fear and anxiety into the person she wants to commit the crimes (Macbeth), causing him to overthink the situation. Charles Manson never actually murdered anyone, but convinced his “cult” to do it for him, making him an accomplice. Lady Macbeth and charles also share the vengeance aspect of these crimes. Both feel like they have not been respected enough and they feel that they should hold a greater title or have more power. But both have people in their lives that they feel are holding them back, for example in Lady Macbeth's case it is Duncan. She must have Duncan killed for her and her husband to have a chance at becoming king and queen. In Charles case,he feels that must get back at people for his rejection in showbiz and society, for he wanted to be a famous artist in music or an actor. Therefore he ordered his most obedient men in his cult to Roman Polanski’s household to kill him and his family, but roman was away making a film that night, so his wife and 3 other people that were in the home were murdered. Charles and Lady Macbeth both felt that they had to do things the dirty way to achieve their goal.