`Macbeth` was a play written by William Shakespeare. `Macbeth` is about the betrayal of the king. `Macbeth` explores many themes but the main theme is Guilt, this theme is expressed with many techniques such as key scenes, conflict and characterisation. These techniques explain how the character affects our understanding of this theme.
`Macbeth` is about a man named Macbeth who is convinced by Lady Macbeth and the three witches to kill the king so that he can be in power. After Macbeth has done this he is filled with guilt and through lack of sleep becomes insane, he becomes very paranoid and begins to kill all of his friends who become suspicious. Soon this leads to a war started by Macduff to stop Macbeth most men desert Macbeth resulting in his death.
One of Shakespeare’s reasons for writing `Macbeth` was to illustrate the consequences of murdering a king. A main consequence was guilt and how this led to the murder of friends and resulting in an inevitable death. One way for Shakespeare to get his point across was to show how the character affects the theme a key scene. A main scene where Macbeth shows his guilt was the murder of the king. This is the scene where Macbeth kills the king, after Macbeth kills the king he suggests to us that this is only the start and how this will drive them insane. Macbeth also starts to suggest how paranoia has started to affect him “Methought I heard a voice cry `Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep`”. It doesn’t stop there as he then starts to blame himself for the sleeplessness of others “Glamis hath murder`d sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.” This is important as sleep is related to the king as Macbeth has just murdered King Duncan so he also just killed sleep, Cawdor has a king no more and Glamis has a king no more, making Macbeth feel even guiltier. An image of blood stained hands in this scene was also very important. In Macbeth, blood suggests the idea of guilt, this is because blood is found when you kill a man and you would most likely feel guilty after and the guilt would stain you. The image of blood stained hands is suggested when Macbeth says “hangman’s hands” which would be covered in blood of a criminal, but this would also make Macbeth guilty as the king was not a criminal, the king had done nothing wrong to deserve what Macbeth did to him. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in incarnadine, making the green one red.” This tells us that Macbeth has come to recognise his guilt can never be washed off, even if the blood can be washed off, his guilt will poison the world around him which is what he compared with the ocean to.
Macbeth has many conflicts with many different people to show his guilt. There is Conflict in the Banquet scene when Macbeth meets the ghost of Banquo, his friend he has killed because of Banquo’s suspicions of Macbeth. The death of Banquo does not help Macbeth in any way, it increases his illnesses, paranoia and guilt. The scene does not show conflict with Macbeth and Banquo, but of Macbeth himself, Banquo is not really there it is only because of Macbeths insanity and guilt that he believes Banquo is sitting there covered in the blood that Macbeth has made. This is an inner conflict with Macbeth himself and further illustrates Macbeth’s troubles. Conflict between Macbeth and MacDuff starts when the king’s death was announced, gradually MacDuff becomes even more suspicious and due to Macbeth’s paranoia it leads to Macbeth