Question: Analysis how important ideas were developed throughout the text.
Guilt is the thief of life. Guilt in William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ helps show the ideas of blood, sleep, and hallucinations are developed throughout the play through symbolism and imagery. and how guilt plagues us until our last breath.
The beginning of the play highlights to use how drowned Macbeth has become in guilt this is through the quote,’ will all great Neptunes ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?’ The imagery in this helps us see how plagued with guilt and regret Macbeth has become as not even all of the ocean can clean the blood from his hands. He believes that all the blood on his hands will stain the ocean red. This is the first time we see the fear and guilt portrayed in the play and blood is a constant fear for Macbeth but he is so corrupted he doesn’t stop. Shakespeare uses this to highlight how corrupt the human condition is and how once we do something we regret, we still can’t stop. This can be seen through the case of mass murders. They kill once and that lust and regret somehow drive people to kill more until they are drowning themselves in the blood of others and the guilt of their actions.
Shakespeare also highlights to us how guilt can corrupt the mind through the idea of sleep and how this is developed throughout the text. This plague of insomnia on Macbeth is seen through the quote,’ me thought I heard a voice say sleep no more… Macbeth doth murder sleep’. The use of symbolism helps develop how corrupt the mind can become when someone is plagued with insomnia. In Shakespearian time the curpution of the mind was a huge issue and was dealt with differently now. As if you couldn’t sleep and had insomnia you were seen as mad and treated different but now it seems like everyone has insomnia due to technology and more life stress. As most teenagers and adults have only 5 hours of sleep on average. Shakespeare was trying to show his audience how dangerous insomnia was to the mind and how it tricks us. This lack of sleep developed Macbeth’s paranoia and guilt. Once the mind is corrupt we are doomed.
No normal person should have hallucinations, right? That’s not the case for Macbeth. The curpution of the mind and how it becomes plagued with guilt is finally seen through the quote,’ is this a dagger I see before me?’ Macbeth sees a dagger covered in blood floating in front of him tempting him to kill Duncan. The use of imagery once again shows how divided the mind can become and how once we have made our minds up we see what we desire. But Macbeth had so much guilt about what he was about to be doing he began to Halluniante. Shakespeare uses this idea to show the effects of guilt and how far the mind will go to make us do things we don’t want to. This shows how destroyed the human mind is and from when Shakespeare wrote this play human has become worse and insanity plagues us all.
The ideas of blood, sleep, and hallucination in William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ highlight to us how corrupt the mind can become. In the end, guilt does steal life no matter what you do to stop it.
