Damning Guilt in Shakespeares Macbeth :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Damning Guilt in Macbeth Both main characters in the Shakespearian tragedy Macbeth meet unfortunate ends, with this due in part at least to the huge burden of guilt which they must carry with most of the drama. In Fools of Time Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy, Northrop Frye sees a kin between Macbeths guilt and his hallucinations The future moment is the moment of guilt, and it imposes on one, until it is reached, the unacceptable strain of remaining innocent. . . . We notice that anyone who is forced to brood on the foregone and expect the future lives in a world where that which is not consecrate is present, in other words in a world of hallucination. Macbeths electrical condenser for seeing things that may or may not be at that place is almost limitless, and the appearance of the mousetrap play to Claudius, though more soft explained, has the same dramatic point as the appearance of Banquos ghost. (90) Fanny Kemble in peeress Macbeth asserts that brothel keeper Macbe th was unconscious of her guilt, which n perpetuallytheless killed her Lady Macbeth, even in her sleep, has no qualms of conscience her remorse takes none of the adoringer forms akin to repentance, nor the weaker ones allied to fear, from the spare-time activity of which the tortured soul, seeking where to hide itself, not seldom escapes into the boundless wilderness of madness. A very able article, published some years ago in the National Review, on the character of Lady Macbeth, insists much upon an ruling that she died of remorse, as some palliation of her crimes, and mitigation of our detestation of them. That she died of wickedness would be, I think, a juster verdict. Remorse is consciousness of guilt . . . and that I think Lady Macbeth never had though the unrecognized pressure of her great guilt killed her. (116-17) In Memoranda Remarks on the Character of Lady Macbeth, Sarah Siddons mentions the guilt and ambition of Lady Macbeth and their effect Re I have given suck (1.7.54ff.) Even here, direful as she is, she shews herself made by ambition, but not by nature, a perfectly savage creature. The very use of such a tender allusion in the midst of her dreadful language, persuades one unequivocally that she has really matte up the maternal yearnings of a mother towards her babe, and that she considered this action the most enormous that ever required the strength of human nerves for its perpetration.