Guilt Flashcards
(8 cards)
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand?” Macbeth act 2
- suggest he is ridding himself of responsibility over the murder he will commit
- even before committing regicide, he understands it will plague his conscience so he poses that is has been put “towards” him involuntarily
Calls the dagger an “instrument” act 2
- alludes to how the “instruments of darkness” (the witches) with their dark musicality, have bought him to this point of sheer inner turmoil
“I heard a voice cry,’sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep” Macbeth act2
- he is so perturbed by guilt that he is imprisoned within a state of restlessness.
- motif of sleep is synonymous with innocence lack of sleep explores his loss of innocence and his gain of guilt
“The gory locks at me” act 3 when he sees Banquo ghost
-“gory” is suggestive that Banquo’s ghost is a physical manifestation of his violence.
- Structurally, the murderers enter the banquet before Macbeth, exacerbating how his kingship is unnatural as he disrupted divine right of kings
“O full of scorpions is my mind,dear wife” act 3
-“scorpions” are poisonous, representing how Macbeth’s ambition has poisoned his mind thus he is consequently plagued by guilt and remorse
- as it if “full” highlights he has been completely engulfed with guilt and mercy
-the metaphor of a creature festering in his mind shows that his tyrannical nature has been omnipotent, he now resembles a savage creature not a moral human
“Had he not resembles my father as he slept, I had done it” act 2 LM
- exposes her guilty conscience from the start, exposing her inner cowardice and ingrained fear of patricide.
- she is manipulative as she operates within a liminal gender, she takes advantaged of alleged feminine weakness when it favours her but brutally rejects it if it represses her
“Our damned spot! Out I say !” LM act 5
-“spot” is emblematic of the scar the murder has created on her mind.
- this perhaps could be interpreted by Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Madness was perceived as a sign of being possessed by demons. It was believed that witches had a “spot” on their bodies which identified them as evil which is reinforced by “damned” which has connotations of hell.
