Macbeth\'s Mental Decline Shakespeare Knows

Macbeth's Mental Decline

Shakespeare knows how to shine the light on human imperfection. While we would like to believe we are strong and will do the right thing at the right time, Shakespeare reveals how we can become sidetracked with our own desire and blinded to our sense of right and wrong. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth, Macbeth enjoys healthy amount of aspiration to become king. He has a healthy ambition but he is not obsessed to the point of doing anything irrational. This changes after he allows himself to become influenced by outside forces. The forces are the witches and Lady Macbeth. Each of them prods Macbeth in a different way, playing up his desire to be king. As he murders to achieve his goal, he begins to lose his grip on reality. He loses his sense of self and his grip on morality becomes looser. The evil he commits is too much for him to consider and while he hopes not thinking about things will make life better, it only makes him more unstable.

Murdering Duncan is the fist step of Macbeth's mental breakdown. He becomes paranoid when he realizes that killing Duncan makes the wtiches prophecy closer to becoming a painful reality. The witches wanred him about a "fruitless crown" (III.i.60) and he was not helping matters with his behavior. Lady Macbeth's persuasion convinced him to kill Duncan and once he crossed over from right to wrong, it would be difficult to go back. He ignores his conscious and once he realizes the weight of murder, he admits he is "afraid to think of what I have done" (II.ii.66). It is easier for him not to think about his actions, so he does not think about them. This desensitizes him because he never actually processed what has happened. Because he ignores the meaning of what he has done, it makes it easier for him to move toward evil. In short, he chooses evil over good.

Macbeth somehow justifies murdering Banquo and Fleance, which demonstrates his deteriorating mental state. He did not struggle with murdering them as he did with Duncan.

He says:

For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd;

Put rancours in the vessel of my peace

Only for them; and mine eternal jewel

Given to the common enemy of man,

To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! (III.i. 65-69).

Macbeth no longer stops to question his behavior or his motives. He simply moves forward with his plan. He plans the murders and make provisions for them on his own. The fact he does not need Lady Macbeth to prod him along illustrates his mental instability. His behavior even startles Lady Macbeth.