According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, guilt is defined as, “a bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that one has done something wrong or bad”. Everyone has felt guilt about something about in his/her life. In Macbeth, Macbeth feels guilt over killing Duncan, the king, for his own personal gain to become king. Macbeth’s guilt develops into three main levels. The first being overall guilt and feeling bad, then progressing into madness and delusions, and finally into feeling not much at all for what he has done over the course of the play.
Macbeth first feels guilt after feeling Duncan, like any human being would feel after killing another human being. After the murder Macbeth finds Lady Macbeth in the hallway and confesses his fears that whoever was in the next chamber heard him, but she tells him, “Consider it not so deeply” (I1. ii. 29). He then tells her that he heard a voice that cried, “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep” (I1. ii. 34-35). Macbeth shows more guilt in his last line of the scene while someone knocks from within and Macbeth says, “To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst! ” (11. 11. 72-73). Macbeth’s guilty begins to drive him to paranoia in Scene ii of Act II whenever he kills the guards. Macbeth claims to have killed the guards because of “The expedition of my violent love outrun the pauser, reason” (II. iii. 111-112), meaning he allowed his love for the king to cloud his judgement, so he acted irrationally and killed the guards. In reality, Macbeth killed the guards out of panic because he wanted to ensure that they would not be able identify Macbeth as the killer.
Macbeth’s paranoia continues to climb into Act III when he hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. Macbeth begins by planning a huge feast in honor of Banquo, but he has no intention for Banquo to make an appearance at this feast. Lady Macbeth begins to notice Macbeth’s strange behavior, but whenever she confronts on his behavior, she is met with even stranger behavior.
Macbeth tells her things like, ‘We have only scotched the snake, not killed it: she’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice remains in danger of her former tooth” (III. i. 13-15) and “Let your remembrance apply to Banquo; present him eminence… Our honors in these flattering streams and make our faces vizard to our hearts, disguising what they are” (W1. ji. 30-34). Macbeth begins to show his real paranoia to everyone at the feast. The feast begins with the murderer telling Macbeth that Banquo is dead, but whenever Macbeth goes to rejoin the feast, his seat is occupied by Banquo’s ghost.
Macbeth then starts yelling at the Ghost and rambling on about how burying bodies is pointless if they are just going to rise from the dead, then the ghost exits, but it reappears. The ghost’s reappearance push Macbeth over the edge and he yells at it again and says, “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee” (III. iv. 94). After this ghostly encounter everyone leaves and Macbeth goes back to the three witches to receive more apparitions. After Macbeth receives his three new apparitions, his guilt is resolved and he becomes arrogant because he thinks he is invincible.
The only thing he had to worry about was Macduff and his family, so he sends for them to all be murdered, of course, the only difference between this time and all the other times is that Macbeth feels nothing after they are killed. He sees no ghost and he hears no voices telling him to, “Sleep no more! ” (I1. ii. 34-35), he feels nothing by this point in the play. His wife dies and all he has to say is, “She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word” (V. v. 17-18). His arrogance begins to show as he fights Young Siward.
Macbeth was given the apparition that only a person not born of a woman can kill him, and everyone is born of a woman, so he has nothing to worry about. Whenever Macbeth slaughters Young Siward states, “Thou wast born of woman. But swords || smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, brandish by man that’s of a woman born” (V. vii. 12-14), with no guilt whatsoever. Macbeth’s lack of guilt and excess of arrogance does eventually cost him his life. Macduff, whose family fell as victims of one of Macbeth’s guilt free murders, enters Dunsinane and finds Macbeth.
Ultimately, Macduff kills Macbeth avenging every death Macbeth is responsible for. In conclusion, Macbeth felt guilt at the beginning of the play, but by the end of the play he feels no remorse for anything he does. He has extremely high guilt during Act II, after killing Duncan, which causes him to kill the guards. In Act III he has Banquo killed and has subconscious guilt for the murder and hallucinates Banquo’s ghost sitting in his seat the feast. In the end however, Macbeth’s lack of guilt for killing Macduff’s family and arrogance gets him killed by Macduff.
