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Macbeth: Lady Macbeth Uses Others As A Shield For Guilt - Paper

Macbeth: Lady Macbeth Uses Others As A Shield For Guilt

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth unconsciously uses Macbeth and others as a shield for guilt. When she wants something but doesn't have the guts to perform the task herself, she calls upon anyone but herself to do it. She thinks that this will erase her conscience of any guilt it has on it, but the shield is faulty.
The first and most obvious of all places where this shield is placed is in the first two acts where Lady Macbeth is trying to convince her husband to kill King Duncan and become King of Scotland. She persuades by attacking Macbeth's manliness,
"Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green ...

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emerges in her visions of blood remaining on her hands,

"The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is
she now? What, will these hands ne'er be clean? No
more o' that, my lord, no more o' that. You mar all
with this starting."
(V, I, 44-47)

Another less obvious place where Lady Macbeth uses others to shield her guilt is when Banquo is murdered. Both MacBeth and Lady MacBeth discuss their fear of Banquo knowing too much, and Lady MacBeth resolves to do nothing and leaves the chore up to her husband. After finding out about it, Lady MacBeth tells herself it wasn't her fault, but deep inside she knows it is just as much her as it is MacBeth who killed Banquo,

"Wash your hands. Put on your night-
gown. Look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Ban-
quo's buried; he cannot come out on 's grave."
(V, I, 65-68)

These examples show how Lady MacBeth used her husband to shield away the guilt. What she didn't expect was that it wouldn't work, and the blow of the guilt from ...

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Macbeth: Lady Macbeth Uses Others As A Shield For Guilt. (2004, March 19). Retrieved January 23, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Macbeth-Lady-Macbeth-Uses-Others-Shield/4827

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"Macbeth: Lady Macbeth Uses Others As A Shield For Guilt." Essayworld.com. March 19, 2004. Accessed January 23, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Macbeth-Lady-Macbeth-Uses-Others-Shield/4827.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 3/19/2004 07:21:31 AM
Category: Arts
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 452
Pages: 2

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