Intro

• Shakespeare’s Macbeth (c. 1606) explores the idea of guilt by representing how different individuals experience it as complicated by societal standards.
• Elizabethan England was a highly religious culture at this time in which people’s morality was informed by their spiritual and societal beliefs.
• Macbeth’s guilt is caused by the weight that unchecked ambition and hamartia have put on him, resulting from his devotion to the Divine Right of Kings.
• Similarly, the effect of gender and spiritual expectations in society can be seen in the use of religious connotations regarding Lady Macbeth.
• Both characters feel the effects of society on them, however they process and express their guilty conscience in different ways.