Guilt

• Lady Macbeth: "what's done is done"

  COMPARED TO THE END: "what's done cannot be undone"

  Direct contrast. By gaining ambition/power she sent herself insane and realised her wrongdoings
• Lady Macbeth: "fill me from the crown to the toe topful of direst cruelty"

  Feels like her maternal qualities are what's stopping her achieve her ambition. Has NO GUILT being a dreadful person to get it.
• Lady Macbeth: "to bed, to bed, to bed"

  She is weak and insane as a result of her guilt CONTRASTS with her power/ambition at the start.
• Lady Macbeth:

  sleepwalkingFact she's sleepwalking shows how her guilt haunts her to the point of insanity.
• Lady Macbeth: "Out damned spot! Out, I say!"

  Her guilt is torturing her, she wants rid of it
• Lady Macbeth: "smear the sleepy grooms with blood"

  She attempts to pass on the guilt of murdering Duncan through BLOOD
• Lady Macbeth: "a little water clears us of this deed"

  START: believes guilt is easy to get rid of and won't bother her at all
• Dagger: "fatal vision"

  Macbeth's ambition is his hamartia. The dagger is inviting him to commit regicide: "fatal"
• Dagger: "a dagger of the mind"

  He's going insane and seeing a dagger float in front of him, telling him to kill Duncan
• Dagger: "Is this a dagger which I see before me?"

  It's a figure of his imagination as a result of his guilt. Doesn't know if it's real or not. Going insane.
• Dagger: "Come, let me clutch thee"

  Can't help but feel bad, wants it to be easier to take the dagger and kill Duncan. The dagger is covered in BLOOD to represent the "bloody business" he will do.
• Dagger: "I have thee not and yet I see thee still"

  He hasn't committed regicide but can see the dagger TELLING HIM TO
• Dagger: causes a "heat-oppressed brain"

  So torn on what to do it pains him
• Banquo's ghost: "take any shape but that"

  Banquo is haunting him as a result of his guilt. Any shape but that suggests he regrets killing him and wants him alive?
• Banquo's ghost: "unreal mockery"

  Makes it out like someone is doing it as a joke to mask his guilt for killing him
• Banquo's ghost: "hence, horrible shadow!"

  wants the guilt of having his friend killed to leave
• Macbeth: "Let not light see my black and deep desires"

  Macbeth knows his ambitions are bad. He asks for darkness to hide this side of him from the world
• Macbeth: "Amen stuck in my throat"

  Cant bring himself to say something associated with goodness
• Macbeth: "I could not say Amen"

  He's so overwhelmed with guilt from his wrongdoings that God is rejecting his prayers
• Macbeth: "I am afraid to think what I have done"

  He doesn't even want to think about or address what he's done
• Knocking

  as a symbol of Macbeth's conscienceUsed to show M feels like the world is closing in on him due to his guilt.

  Like somethings getting closer: His fate? Punishment? Death?
• Motif of Blood: "Here's the smell of blood still"

  It's sunk into her skin and leaves a smell behind, constantly reminding her of her guilt
• Motif of Blood: "will these hands ne'er be clean?"

  she wants to be able to wash away her guilt and wrongdoings, it's tormenting her
• Motif of Blood: "who would've thought the old man to have so much blood on him?"

  LM Didn't realise how guilty she'd feel after his death.

  CONTRASTS with "make my blood thick": she asked to be able to kill Duncan and fulfil her ambition
• Motif of Blood: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?"

  Calling on every drop of water: Not even all the water in the world could cleanse M of his sins

  SPEAKS TO ROMAN GOD because he acknowledges the awful things he's done and knows he can't talk to the Christian God

  "could not say Amen"
• Macbeth: "full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!"

  Guilt leads to his insanity/downfall

  Painful memories weighing down on his mind
• Macbeth/Blood: "I am in blood stepped in so far"

  He knows what he has done is wrong but he's now a killing machine and can't turn back