Macbeths

How does Shakespeare explore Macbeths struggle with his conscience in Act one, Scene 7 and Act two, Scene 1 In this essay I am going to focus on how Shakespeare explores Macbeths struggle with his conscience and what he says to support this. I’m going to explore the different frames of mind Macbeth was in at different points of Act one, Scene 7 and Act two, Scene 1. At some points Macbeth is feeling like he wants to kill Duncan, at other times he is not sure and at other times he is feeling discouraged from killing Duncan. Shakespeare shows that Macbeth is encouraged to kill the king.

“ Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand? Come let me clutch thee” “ I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw. Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going; and such an instrument I was to use. ” Shakespeare is showing that Macbeth is hallucinating. This must mean he wants to kill the king as if he did not he would not be hallucinating a dagger. In the quote “ Thou marshall’st me” to “ an instrument I was to use” Macbeth believes this hallucination is showing him the way to Duncan and that he will kill the king with a dagger.

He refers to the dagger as an instrument which sounds less personal and more civilised than weapon. “ If th’assassination could trammel up the consequence and catch with his surcease success” In this quote Shakespeare has given the image that Macbeth will “ assassinate” the king if he could catch all the “ consequences” and worries in a big net and throw them away. Shakespeare uses the word “ assassination” as a euphemism. He tries to make the word murder less gruesome and disgusting and more clean and precise.

He also makes it seem less like he is doing it out of hatred and more like he is doing it for a political reason. Shakespeare shows Macbeth in a different state of mind, that of which he is undecided whether to kill Duncan. “ a false creation, proceeding from the heat oppressed brain” this quote comes just after “ Is this a dagger” and is referring to the fact he is hallucinating and that none of it is real. The words “ false creation” show that he believes that the hallucination was “ false” or made up.

When he mentions a heat oppressed brain he is suggesting that he has a fevered brain. However this hallucination was created by his fevered brain. Shakespeare also shows us when Macbeth is detested by the thought of murder. “ Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses” “ I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’er leaps itself and falls on the other” Macbeth truly believes that he has been tricked by his eyes in to thinking there is a dagger when in fact there is not.

He thinks he has made a fool of himself and that he has been thinking false thoughts and that if his eyes were working his other senses cannot have been. In the second quote Macbeth says he wants to kill the king but he has no “ spur” or ambition to do it. I believe that Macbeth will kill the king. This is because at the end on the second soliloquy Macbeth states, “ I, go and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell” This is showing that he is on his way to kill the king and that he will do it.