Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

Macbeth

Whilst in Macbeth , the titular character shows undeniable signs of corruptive ambition, and

internally tussles with the act of regicide, it is not until after Macbeth kills King Duncan that

his mental health begins to deteriorate. He begins to show signs that after Duncan's murder, he

unable to sleep, and facing insomnia – his health begins to deteriorate in conjunction with his

sanity (Cummins, 2009). By the time that Macbeth arranges for the murders of Banquo and

Fleance and then Macduff's family, he has lost all the comforts necessary the survival of the

human psyche. Macbeth is alive in his physical body, but mentally he has become corpse-like:

he is cold and unresponsive to those around him. Macbeth distances himself from his friends,

his court, and even his wife; spiralling into a state of self-isolation driven by his slow recession

into insanity (Hawkins, 2009) . The further Macbeth recedes into his state of mental dissolution,

the further his compulsion to commit violent acts increases. The façade of the heartless ruler

that Macbeth projects is in itself contradictory, as it represents Macbeth’s ebbing humanity, but

contrasts with the Macbeth’s vehement need for human emotion and connection.

The relationship between madness and violence appears often in many of Shakespeare’s works,

but most tragically in Macbeth . The play validates the great lengths to which Shakespeare went

to represent Macbeth’s compromised mental state; in which Macbeth shows the ways that

mental illness can be simultaneously a cause and effect of gratuitous violence. Specifically,

both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth display attributes fitting postpartum psychosis, serving as a

modern explanation of their symptomatic homicidal thoughts and actions, as well as the

hallucinations that both lead to and follow from the murders they commit (Chiu, 2012). The

occurrence of supernatural and unnatural events the like presence of the witches in Macbeth

contributes to the ‘demonic’ nature of Shakespeare’s plays (Cambridge School of Shakespeare,

2014) . Especially, the return of Banquo as the infamous Ghost is a key component in the

Extended Essay

ENGLISH A1

12