This essay will attempt to explore what the play ‘Macbeth’ suggests about the states of minds of both the titular character Macbeth, and his scheming wife Lady Macbeth, using extracts from Act 1, Scene 7. I will also examine how the language used emphasises the key themes and ideas within the play. The characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are revealed and developed through their dialogues with use of soliloquies and asides, helping to reveal their personalities, states of mind, emotions and motivation. Much figurative language and imagery is used by Shakespeare to emphasise the themes within the play, creating atmosphere and mood in order to achieve dramatic outcome (109). Initially eager to have the deed done, he would have it done sooner rather than later and hope for the murder to be the finish of it all:
Act 1, Scene 7 comes directly before the murder of Duncan, and sees Macbeth considering the deed. Macbeth exhibits telling signs of an unbalanced mind and of his impending madness very clearly in this scene. This opposed state of mind; his internal …show more content…
This reference to blood in ‘bloody instructions’ represents Macbeth’s guilt at even contemplating this terrible crime. He reminds himself that his skill for killing has indeed been learnt for the benefit of the king, and now he shall use this skill against the king, but there is always that possibility that the same talent may be used against him.
Macbeth assumes that justice makes us pay for our actions with the same fate in ‘commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to our own lips’ . The theme of Regicide is given great prominence here and there is also a suggestion of the mutilation of a natural order of things – the king was believed to have been chosen by Divine Right, and so murdering a king would be an act of gross