Macbeth By William Shakespeare

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth unconsciously uses Macbeth and others as a shield for guilt. When she wants something but doesn't have the guts to perform the task herself, she calls upon anyone but herself to do it. She thinks that this will erase her conscience of any guilt it has on it, but the shield is faulty.

The first and most obvious of all places where this shield is placed is in the first two acts where Lady Macbeth is trying to convince her husband to kill King Duncan and become King of Scotland. She persuades by attacking Macbeth's manliness,

"Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting ‘I dare not' wait upon ‘I would,'
Like the poor cat I' th' adage?"
(I, vii, 39-49)

By doing this, she manages to get Macbeth to kill King Duncan, however, in the end, she knows she is just as guilty as he is. Her guilt emerges in her visions of blood remaining on her hands,

"The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is
she now? What, will these hands ne'er be clean? No
more o' that, my lord, no more o' that. You mar all
with this starting."
(V, I, 44-47)

Another less obvi...

Macbeth By William Shakespeare

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