Tuesday, March 4, 2014

In Macbeth, Lady MacBeth instigated the actions that her husband took. Why is she so distracted by the results of what she did?

Lady Macbeth underestimates the power of conscience. She thinks that it is easy to divorce oneself from one's actions, simply by not thinking about them (she tells Macbeth that thinking on things would make him crazy). She was never a woman devoid of feeling or conscience, and that is what makes her interesting. Even though she seems to think she is stronger in will than her husband, she did not think she had the spirit for the killing that she needed, otherwise she would not have asked the spirits to 'unsex' her and fill her with venom. She thinks she is freer of the 'milk of human kindness' than her husband, and she may well be, but she is not entirely free of her humanity, which explains her strange comment about being unable to kill Duncan because he 'looked like her father' as he was sleeping.

Underestimating the residual effects of our actions is a common human weakness. We can't really stave off stress by refusing to think about it, any more than we can change a stupid or hurtful thing we've done by pretending it didn't happen. Sure, we might be able to delude ourselves during the daylight hours by an act of will, but we can't control our subconscious mind. Sleep, if and when it comes, will let the full cause of our unrest surface.


Were she actually as inhuman as she liked to present herself as, Lady Macbeth would feel no pricks of conscience, but she's not.

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