Hi,
I'm currently a high school student, and I'm needing some help at writing essays. At the moment we're studying Macbeth in Literature, but I thought, if someone wouldn't mind, they could read over my essay and give me a few tips or corrections? It would be much appreciated! I'm not very good at writing essays, and, although I normally do quite well in English, essays is one area in which I could improve in. I know my introduction is very weak, but I'm not sure how to write a strong introduction. I also think I need a longer or better conclusion, as mine sort of trails off. But I'm not really sure how to fix these things. As I said, any advice or criticism would be appreciated. Thank you! Here is my essay:
By focusing on the key scenes of the play, show how the sense of guilt transforms Macbeth and Lady Macbeth form their first appearance till the end of the play.
All throughout the play, a sense of guilt is shown, sometimes barely a sense of guilt, and of course there are times when guilt overpowers the character.
Macbeth is the person who starts feeling guilt in the play. Before he kills Duncan, and after he kills him, guilt starts to weaken his ambition and certainty of the choice he had made to kill Duncan. Moments before Macbeth is going to kill Duncan, he is discouraged. He decides that he will not carry out the murder. Lady Macbeth is scornful for her husband, and she accuses him of cowardice and a lack of love for her. Lady Macbeth comes to reassure him that it will go as planned. After some perseverance and persuasion, Macbeth decides to carry out the murder, and this is the point in the play were the real guilt starts to appear. When Macbeth is alone and does not have Lady Macbeth to help and strengthen him, he has hallucinations of a dagger. He ‘sees’ the dagger leading him to Duncan’s room. After Macbeth commits the murder, he is obsessed by thoughts of damnation and guilt. Macbeth starts saying he was hearing voices, and starts saying bad things about him. Obviously, Lady Macbeth is blown away and does not know whether to believe him or not.
The next scene where we see how guilty Macbeth is feeling is when Macbeth is told that Banquo has been killed. He imagines the ghost of Banquo sitting in his chair. He starts talking and shouting to this imaginative ghost, and Lady Macbeth is worried about him and takes him away.
In the play, it is not only Macbeth who suffers from guilt. Lady Macbeth is also a character which shows guilt, being most of the cause for the murders done. She is taken over by guilt, when she starts sleepwalking in the middle of the night carrying a candle, and talking about blood on her hands. Ofcourse, when she is sleepwalking, she reveals the whole truth to the people and others characters that she and her husband have committed the murders that have been going on. She makes references to the deaths of Duncan and Lady Macduff, and Banquo. Even at the end of the play, the guilt overwhelms her, and she commits suicide (or it is thought to be).
So, all throughout the play there is indeed a sense of guilt in Lady Macbeth and Macbeth. Both show this a lot, especially when they speak privately. At the end the guilt overwhelms them and gets the better of them by having the play end of the deaths of both of them.
