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This lesson covers three more themes that run through Macbeth: guilt and conscience, the role of the supernatural, and the tension between appearance and reality. These themes are closely interconnected — guilt manifests as hallucinations (supernatural), and the entire play is built on the gap between what things seem and what they are.
Guilt is one of the most powerful forces in Macbeth. It pursues both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth relentlessly, manifesting as hallucinations, insomnia, paranoia, and madness.
| Character | Manifestation of guilt | Act.Scene | Key quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Macbeth | Hallucinated dagger | 2.1 | "Is this a dagger which I see before me" |
| Macbeth | Cannot say "Amen" | 2.2 | "I could not say 'Amen'" |
| Macbeth | Hears a voice cry "Sleep no more" | 2.2 | "Macbeth does murder sleep" |
| Macbeth | Cannot wash blood from hands | 2.2 | "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?" |
| Macbeth | Sees Banquo's ghost | 3.4 | "Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake / Thy gory locks at me" |
| Lady Macbeth | Sleepwalking and handwashing | 5.1 | "Out, damned spot!" |
| Lady Macbeth | Cannot remove the smell of blood | 5.1 | "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" |
Blood is the play's central symbol of guilt. It develops across the play:
Act 1: Blood = honour ("brave Macbeth... his brandished steel / Which smoked with bloody execution")
Act 2: Blood = guilt ("Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?")
Act 3: Blood = inevitability ("I am in blood / Stepped in so far")
Act 5: Blood = madness ("Out, damned spot! Out, I say!")
Examiner's tip: Tracking how a symbol develops across the play is a hallmark of grade 8–9 responses. The shift from blood as a symbol of honour (Act 1) to blood as a symbol of inescapable guilt (Act 5) mirrors Macbeth's moral decline.
Sleep in the play represents innocence and peace of mind. Macbeth destroys this when he murders the sleeping Duncan:
"Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep' — the innocent sleep, / Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care" (2.2)
Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking (5.1) is the ultimate irony — she cannot sleep peacefully because her guilty conscience invades even her unconscious mind.
| Aspect | Macbeth | Lady Macbeth |
|---|---|---|
| When guilt appears | Immediately after the murder | Delayed — emerges much later |
| How it manifests | Hallucinations, paranoia, aggression | Sleepwalking, obsessive handwashing |
| Response to guilt | Tries to outrun it through more violence | Cannot cope — breaks down completely |
| Outcome | Dies fighting | Dies by apparent suicide |
Examiner's tip: Note the ironic reversal — in Act 2, Macbeth is consumed by guilt while Lady Macbeth dismisses it ("A little water clears us of this deed"). By Act 5, their positions have reversed: Macbeth has hardened into numbness, while Lady Macbeth is destroyed by the guilt she once mocked.
The supernatural pervades Macbeth — from the Witches' prophecies to Macbeth's hallucinations to the unnatural events that follow Duncan's murder.
| Element | Act.Scene | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| The Witches | 1.1, 1.3, 3.5, 4.1 | Agents of chaos; deliver prophecies; embody evil |
| The hallucinated dagger | 2.1 | Macbeth's guilty conscience or supernatural omen |
| The voice crying "Sleep no more" | 2.2 | Conscience or divine punishment |
| Banquo's ghost | 3.4 | Guilt made visible; only Macbeth can see it |
| The apparitions | 4.1 | Equivocal prophecies that give false confidence |
| Unnatural events | 2.4 | Darkness, owls killing falcons, horses eating each other |
This is one of the most important debates in the play:
| Position | Argument |
|---|---|
| The Witches control Macbeth | They seek him out; their prophecies shape every major decision he makes |
| Macbeth has free will | He chooses to act; Banquo hears the same prophecy but does not murder |
| The Witches are catalysts | They reveal what is already inside Macbeth — his ambition |
| It is deliberately ambiguous | Shakespeare does not resolve the question — this is the point |
"If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me / Without my stir" (1.3)
Macbeth initially considers that he might become king without acting — but he does not wait. His impatience reveals that the Witches' prophecy did not create his ambition; it merely ignited it.
Examiner's tip: When analysing the supernatural, always offer multiple interpretations. For example: "The hallucinated dagger could be read as a manifestation of Macbeth's guilty conscience — his subconscious protesting the murder he is about to commit. Alternatively, a Jacobean audience may have seen it as a genuinely supernatural phenomenon — an instrument of the Devil, tempting Macbeth towards damnation."
The gap between appearance and reality is established in the very first scene and runs through every act of the play.
This paradox, spoken by the Witches, is the play's motto. Things that appear good may be evil; things that appear evil may be good. Nothing in the play is what it seems.
| Character / Element | Appearance | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| Macbeth | Loyal thane and brave warrior | Ambitious murderer |
| Lady Macbeth | Gracious hostess (to Duncan) | Co-conspirator plotting his murder |
| Duncan's castle | Pleasant ("This castle hath a pleasant seat" — 1.6) | A death trap |
| The Witches' prophecies | Reassuring ("none of woman born") | Equivocal — they hide the truth in misleading words |
| Macbeth's kingship | Royal authority | Tyranny built on murder |
| Lady Macbeth's confidence | "A little water clears us of this deed" | She is later destroyed by guilt |
"Look like th' innocent flower, / But be the serpent under 't" (1.5)
Lady Macbeth's instruction to Macbeth is the play's clearest statement of the theme — present a false face to the world while hiding murderous intent. The flower/serpent imagery recalls the serpent in the Garden of Eden, linking deception to original sin.
"There's no art / To find the mind's construction in the face" (1.4)
Duncan says this about the original Thane of Cawdor — and then immediately trusts the new Thane of Cawdor (Macbeth), who will also betray him. The dramatic irony is devastating.
"False face must hide what the false heart doth know" (1.7)
Equivocation — saying something that is technically true but deliberately misleading — is a specific form of appearance vs reality in the play.
The Witches are the masters of equivocation:
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