Insanity In Macbeth

The timeless play, Macbeth, centers around themes of power, guilt, insanity, magic and revenge. The main character, Macbeth, although once brave and loyal, slowly goes insane in his attempt to achieve power. Macbeth's character, along with his wife, Lady Macbeth, go through dramatic changes; they fall into the dark abyss of their own deeds and lead themselves into hell. Each incident on this path of darkness, relates to seeing the blood of their victims. To Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, seeing blood meant the end to all rational sanity and marked their beginnings as ruthless murderers unable to work past their guilt and paranoia. I explore how blood represents a mental inability for the Macbeths to escape from their evil deeds of cold blooded
Macbeth brutally stabbed King Duncan because he was convinced by the witches, and his wife, Lady Macbeth, that it would make him king. Later that night, Macbeth looked at his blood stained hands and became mentally unbalanced. In this state of mind, he said, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”(Shakespeare 59) this shows that Macbeth realized that he cannot escape the image of bloodshed. He can never forget what he has done and his hands are a physical reminder. In his distressed state of mind, he was unable to rub blood on the servants in order to cast blame on them. This forced Lady Macbeth to take on the task of rubbing the King's blood on his servants. Macbeth’s quote, his fear of seeing his bloody victim and Lady Macbeth’s role shows a severe reaction to blood mentally and physically and marks the initial inescapable stain on Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s
She also had nightmares. The doctor and gentlewoman watched as Lady Macbeth was sleepwalking, although she was sleeping, she had a candle, and her eyes were open. She seemed disoriented and walked around a bit before she said “Yet here's a spot.” “Out damned spot” (Shakespeare 163). This shows that lady Macbeth cannot stand the mental consequences of her actions and evil deeds. Blood haunts her dreams, she can’t rid the vision that her hands are still covered in blood that one horrible night. She feels guilty and trapped even though she tries to protect Macbeth from going insane, she can't do it for herself. This causes her feelings to become all bottled up and seep into her subconscious which controls her in the form of