2 The Corrosiveness Of Guilt

'The corrosiveness of guilt'. Discuss in relation to 'Macbeth'.
Guilt is a prominent factor in Macbeth and it is experienced by various characters throughout the progression of the play. It could be said that guilt is corrosive but to what extent is open to interpretation. In relation to Macbeth, it breaks away at his sanity however it doesn't do so to an extent to drive him to commit suicide as it does to Lady Macbeth. Although Macbeth was written at a time before the introduction of Gothic literature, Macbeth has many significant Gothic elements, an instance of this being a blurred distinction between sanity and insanity. Macbeth is the first of our characters to be tormented with feelings of guilt. He commits regicide following the trust in the witch's predictions and the persuasion from Lady Macbeth, however, even before doing so, he has feelings of guilt for thinking it could be done. It could be said that the dagger which Macbeth claims he can "see before [him]" which lead him to Duncan's chamber was due to the feeling of guilt he had felt prior to the murder, as Macbeth describes it as a "dagger of the mind" suggesting the guilt has begun corroding at his sanity from the very begining. Arguably, it could be said that the dagger was infact due to supernatural occurences and the witch's conjured it up using supernatural powers. As the play progresses the feelings of guilt begin to rise to new levels in terms of corrosiveness, Macbeth claims that that "[he] does murder sleep", sleep which "knits up the raveled sleave of care." The repition of the word sleep further emphasises how important it was considered, as sleep is an escape from reality, thus implying, having murdered Duncan Macbeth feels as if though he will feel guilty for the remainder of the time due to the fact he will not be able to sleep peacefully again. Sleep is seen as a prerogative of those who have no guilty conscience. It is evident that Macbeth does not sleep and when