macbeth thesis on guilt

The Theme of Guilt in "Macbeth"

The bloody dagger is one manifestation of the Scottish king's remorse

Francesco Zuccarelli / Wikimedia Commons 

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One of Shakespeare's most famous and fearsome tragedies, " Macbeth " tells the story of the Thane of Glamis, a Scottish general who hears a prophecy from three witches that he will one day be king. He and his wife, Lady Macbeth, murder King Duncan and several others in order to fulfill the prophecy, but Macbeth is wracked with guilt and panic over his evil deeds. 

The guilt Macbeth feels softens the character, which allows him to appear at least slightly sympathetic to the audience. His exclamations of guilt before and after he murders Duncan stay with him throughout the play, and provide some of its most memorable scenes. They're ruthless and ambitious, but it's their guilt and remorse which are the undoing of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. 

How Guilt Affects Macbeth — and How It Doesn't

Macbeth’s guilt prevents him from fully enjoying his ill-gotten gains. At the start of the play, the character is described as a hero, and Shakespeare persuades us that the qualities which made Macbeth heroic are still present, even in the king's darkest moments. 

For example, Macbeth is visited by the ghost of Banquo, whom he murdered to protect his secret. A close read of the play suggests that the apparition is the embodiment of Macbeth’s guilt, which is why he nearly reveals the truth about King Duncan’s murder.

Macbeth's sense of remorse is apparently not strong enough to prevent him from killing again, however, which spotlights another key theme of the play: a lack of morality in the two main characters. How else are we expected to believe Macbeth and his wife feel the guilt they express, yet are still able to continue their bloody rise to power?

Memorable Scenes of Guilt in Macbeth

Perhaps the two best-known scenes from Macbeth are based on a sense of dread or guilt that the central characters encounter.

First is the famous Act II soliloquy from Macbeth, where he hallucinates a bloody dagger, one of many supernatural portents before and after he murders King Duncan. Macbeth is so consumed by guilt that he's not even sure what's real:

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

Then, of course, is the pivotal Act V scene where Lady Macbeth tries to wash imaginary bloodstains from her hands. ("Out, out, damned spot!"), as she laments her role in the murders of Duncan, Banquo, and Lady Macduff :

Out, damned spot! Out, I say! — One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky! — Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? — Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

This is the beginning of the descent into madness that ultimately leads Lady Macbeth to take her own life, as she cannot recover from her feelings of guilt.

How Lady Macbeth’s Guilt Differs From Macbeth's

Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind her husband’s actions. In fact, it could be argued that Macbeth’s strong sense of guilt suggests that he would not have realized his ambitions or committed the murders without Lady Macbeth there to encourage him.

Unlike Macbeth’s conscious guilt, Lady Macbeth’s guilt is subconsciously expressed through her dreams and is evidenced by her sleepwalking. By presenting her guilt in this way, Shakespeare is perhaps suggesting that we are unable to escape remorse from wrongdoing, no matter how feverishly we may try to cleanse ourselves. 

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How does Shakespeare present the theme of guilt in Macbeth?

[Point 1] In 'Macbeth', one of the ways in which guilt is presented is through the reoccurring image of blood . In Act 2 Scene 2, the blood on Macbeth’s hands after his murder of Duncan is both literal and a metaphor for his guilt: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine”. Shakespeare juxtaposes blood with water , represented through “Neptune’s ocean” , to contrast the ideas of guilt and purity . [Point 2] He further emphasises this through the use of a rhetorical question and hyperbole , “the multitudinous seas” , to highlight the immorality of the murder and Macbeth’s regret and desperation , in that nothing will be able to cleanse him. In fact, the blood will turn the seas “incarnadine” , suggesting that the act of murder and the resulting blood will change nature , further symbolising Macbeth’s guilt. Macbeth’s desperate and regretful words are especially poignant considering his previous portrayal as a brave and fearless soldier . [Point 3] Similarly, Shakespeare uses the image of blood to highlight how guilt can erode sanity . In Act 5 Scene 1, Lady Macbeth appears fragile and broken by guilt as she attempts to wash imaginary blood from her hands while sleepwalking: “Out damned spot! Out I say! […] What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?” . Shakespeare juxtaposes Lady Macbeth’s power and fearlessness in earlier scenes - “Unsex me here!” - to highlight how guilt can erode a character to the extent that she becomes a shadow of her former self. The imperative and repetition of " Out" suggests that Lady Macbeth continues to attempt to grip on to power , but also highlights her desperation as she struggles to wash the blood from her hands, a parallel to Macbeth in Act 2 Scene 2. [Point 4 - historical context] This is significant in that Shakespeare highlights how unnatural the act of regicide is to his audience, since his patron, James I of England , had an assassination attempt made against him through the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 . [Conclusion] Through the images of blood , Shakespeare presents guilt as a destabilising force that makes people desperate and powerless , and further emphasises the immorality of Duncan’s murder. 

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If you get a question about guilt in the exam, there are two ways you can approach it:

A) you can look at how macbeth and his wife feel guilty about what they've done - of course they do: they killed a good king and, when it comes to it, they don't have a clue what they're doing. they weren't made to be rulers. they're rubbish at it. so what happened was that they killed a good king and were rubbish at ruling the state., b) who was guilty for killing duncan because if macbeth was begin controlled by a magic spell then was it fair to say that he takes responsibility for the crime, in short: any: question about guilt can approach either of these ideas and still do well., i've written more about lady macbeth here as i find her a more interesting character when looking at guilt, but there's plenty for both of them....

Macbeth's guilt

During the opening of the play, macbeth makes it clear that he doesn't want to kill duncan. he calls the idea a "horrid image" and says that it will "shake his single state of man" so violently that he won't be able to do it. he argues that he should be "shutting the door" against anyone who wants to kill duncan, and that duncan's death will be so awful that even the angels will rage "trumpet tongued" against his death. so macbeth seems to know that killing duncan won't get what he wants, but he does it anyway. as a result, quite predictably, he feels really guilty afterwards ., here are some key quotes looking at macbeth's regret for what he did to duncan:, i had most need of blessing, and 'amen' stuck in my throat - just after killing duncan, macbeth must have said a prayer but he cannot say amen which suggests that god cannot bless him., methought i heard a voice cry 'sleep no more macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep . - the fact that macbeth stops being able to sleep is commonly cites as being a result of him feeling guilty. however, although there are repeated connections between sleep and innocence the line "sleep no more macbeth does murder sleep" is written in speech marks, and macbeth clearly says that he "heard a voice cry" it, and it's what the witches did to the sailor during the opening, so it would seem to make much more sense that macbeth can't sleep as a result of the witches' magic spell than any sense of guilt., i am afraid to think what i have done; - macbeth doesn't fear the norwegian army, but he is afraid to face what he's done., will all great neptune's ocean wash this blood / clean from my hand - the image of having bloo d on your hands runs through macbeth, and here he's arguing that even all the water in the sea won't wash his hands clean of their guilt., we sleep / in the affliction of these terrible dreams / that shake us nightly: - regardless of who caused his inability to sleep, macbeth cannot sleep throughout most of the play. here, he talks about his sleep being haunted by terrible dreams that shake him awake again. this is a clear reference to how he cannot escape his guilt for what he's done., better be with the dead .. . than on the torture of the mind to lie / in restless ecstasy. - in this quote he can't sleep, but lies with his mind being tortured. in fact, it is so bad that he would rather be dead, o, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife - t his is the classic line to show macbeth's unstable mental state. sc orpions attack from both ends, they're desert dwellers - like the serpent from the bible - and they're inside his brain; the centre of his sense of self., however, despite this macbeth quickly finds himself in a position where he can't go back. he says that he is "in blood stepp'd so far that should i wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er." which is essentially a way of saying that he's already done so much wrong that it would be as bad to go back as to continue. and so, although he feels guilty, he doesn't turn back and eventually kills banquo as well as macduff's wife and child, and seems pretty non-plu s sed about his wife's death when that gets announced. as a result of all this, it's tough to feel that sorry for him., below, i've gathered a collection of quotes from the play that reflect the mess that macbeth is in by the end. he feels bad about killing more people, but can't seem to stop himself:, i am in blood / stepp'd in so far that, should i wade no more, / returning were as tedious as go o'er: - this is a great line when looking at macbeth's mental state. here, he claims that he's so knee deep in blood that it's as "tedious" to continue killing people as it would be to try to return to his old state of decency. "tedious" is a pretty crazy word to use to describe what he's talking about, but the image is clear: he's over committed now, so he may as well see the whole thing through..., i have almost forgot the taste of fears; - remember when macbeth was afraid to think on what he'd done well by the end that is not the case... he's committed so many terrible acts that he's forgot what it feels like to be afraid of anything his life is a big old mess and that's pretty much how he ends up..., lady macbeth and guilt:, lady macbeth's guilt, when it comes to guilt, lady macbeth comes up most often. she starts the play being adamant that she will feel no regret - she's the classic image of the psychopathic killer. she remains like this for acts 1, 2 and 3 (though there are four lines in act 3 where she's a bit sorry.) she doesn't appear in act 4 at all, then, suddenly in act 5 she's so full of regret that she commits suicide., so, in a nutshell, her character arc goes:, act 1: no remorse act 2: no remorse act 3: no remorse act 4: no appearance act 5: suicidal regret, on the back of this, it's not unreasonable to argue that her character arc is a little lacking. when did she change her mind did something happen to change it what motivated her to rethink her actions why did she just suddenly realise what she'd done, and go through one of the biggest u-turns in literary history, entirely off-stage shakespeare never really explains, and it's absolutely reasonable to argue that this constitutes a considerable missing element in the play., quotes about lady macbeth not feeling any guilt :, stop up the access and passage to remorse - in lady macbeth's m agic spell from act 1 scene 5 she asks the spirits to stop her from feeling any "remorse" - which means regret or guilt. so here, she is using magic to stop guilty feels from being able to access her., the bit when she said she'd kill her own baby - if ever there was a sign that someone lacked the capacity to feel regret or remorse it's the fact that they say they'd kill their own baby to fulfil a promise. lady macbeth really is psychotically ruthless., these deeds must not be thought / after these ways; so, it will make us mad - one thing with this play is that the characters quite often predict what will eventually happen to them. here, lady macbeth recognises that if they spend too long thinking about what they've done - if they dwell on their feelings of guilt - that it will make them mad. which is exactly what happens to her, my hands are of your colour; but i shame / to wear a heart so white. - h e re, lady m a cbeth claims that her hands are as bloody as macbeth's but she'd be ashamed to pretend that she was pure. she accepts what she's done and won't pretend to feel guilty when she doesn't. she won't pretend to have a pure white heart when she knows her heart is bad., things without all remedy / should be without regard: what's done is done. - here , she's basically saying that if you can't do anything to fix something, you shouldn't think about it. she's arguing that because they can't change what they've done they shouldn't worry about it anymore. there is no time or space in lady macbeth's world for feelings of guilt., note : there are loads more of these, but they're a pretty good selection, four lines in act 3:, nought's had, all's spent, where our desire is got without content: 'tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy., these four lines from act 3 are really important as they're the only time prior to her sleepwalking scene that she expresses anything close to any regret for what they've done. really, to take her character from not feeling any guilt to feeling so much that she's suicidal takes a change in her character which we don't ever see., but really, if you look closer at these lines she's not actually feeling regret for what they've done, she's just angry that they've got what she wanted but still aren't happy. she's also troubled by the fact that they're not safe in their position, which isn't really a feeling of regret at all but just a concern for their position., so really, she doesn't actually express any regret until she suddenly becomes suicidal., quotes about lady macbeth feeling regret:, out, damned spot out, i say - here, lady macbeth is sleepwalking a nd trying to wash the blood from her hands. the most common argument here is that she cannot escape what she's done - she has blood on her hands and she cannot escape that fact. she discovers, in fact, that you can boss other people around, but she cannot manage her own conscience. this is what eventually brings her down., what, will these hands ne'er be clean ... here's the smell of the blood still: all the / perfumes of arabia will not sweeten this little hand. - these t wo lines come from the same scene where she's fretting about the blood on her hands., it is very telling though that lady macbeth's expressions of guilt come while she's sleepwalking. sleeping - and dreaming - are often considered to be interesting states as they allow us to get in touch with our subconscious. here, it could be that shakespeare is saying that although lady macbeth may seem like she feels no guilt, she is actually just repressing it. it's possible that shakespeare is really just saying that even someone as evil as lady macbeth can't escape her subconscious feelings of guilt., why did shakespeare leave her lacking so much detail, this is a completely reasonable question and if you're going to mention this idea in an essay you should really look at this. without being able to ask shakespeare himself, i've put together a few ideas that seem reasonable:, a) if we'd spent time with her, going through the slowly dawning process of remorse, there was a danger that we'd develop some sympathy for her position. shakespeare didn't want this. because the whole point of the play was to put people off doing what she did, any element of sympathy for her would have been frowned upon by king james. as a result, shakespeare cut out her descent into madness, and made sure we feel no sympathy for her at all., b) she was a woman and, as such, her character didn't need to be as developed as the male characters on stage. the play itself is really a study in macbeth's motivations anyway, and although his wife steals the scenes she's in she's only ever a secondary character. you could argue that there was just no need to delve into her reasons that deeply., c) she never actually felt any regret consciously... this is a tough one to argue but the fact is that the only time we see her feeling regret is when she's sleepwalking; so she really only dreams the regret that we see. here, shakespeare could be highlighting the way that you can't escape your actions, even if it only in your sleep that they come back to haunt you. this argument is complicated a little when you consider that she killed herself, but...., did she definitely kill herself, the fact is that we think lady macbeth killed herself because malcolm says that macbeth's "fiend-like queen, who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands took off her life." but this is the only reference to her having killed herself., during the action of the play, we hear some women screaming off stage and then a character called seyton (whose name sounds suspiciously like satan) goes to check on her and comes back saying she's dead. now, i'm not saying that satan killed her and then malcolm just cast it aside on the grounds that she was dead and he didn't need to know anymore, but it actually makes a lot more sense of her character arc if she was killed by seyton and his minions rather than that she killed herself., whichever way you choose to look at it, the fact remains that shakespeare doesn't spend long enough on her regret for me to find her character arc very believable, and although you should avoid directly criticising shakespeare you're well within your rights to observe this., who was guilty, essentially, if you're going to argue that macbeth wasn't in control of himself when he killed duncan you'll need to refer to the sections on ambition and the supernatural ., but, if you do this, it's important to bear in mind that macbeth did kill duncan., so while you can argue that he was being controlled by a magic spell or being manipulated by his wife, you can't avoid the fact that he was holding the knife that ended duncan's life. and that's a fact....

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• Macbeth Essay: Guilt & Crimes

What is guilt and is it shown in the play Macbeth? Who demonstrates this guilt, and why is it being displayed? Guilt is a feeling that haunts the conscience for a while. Usually, this feeling comes when one has committed an offence, crime, violation, or wrong act. It is the feeling of responsibility for this poor action that has been committed.

In this play, there are many themes, but guilt is one of the most significant ones. It teaches crucial lessons to the readers, with everlasting morals. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the theme of guilt is established through Lady Macbeth, blood imagery and Macbeth’s internal conflict.

Lady Macbeth is a strong-willed character who will do anything to have her way. Her desire for Macbeth to become King is even greater than that of Macbeth. Throughout the play, Macbeth is forced to commit unforgivable sins to achieve the position of King. Lady Macbeth shows her guilt towards the deaths of Duncan, Banquo, Lady Macduff and her family.

Lady Macbeth’s guilty conscience is displayed near the end of the story when she is sleepwalking. She discusses her feelings, but mainly she reiterates her guilt. “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. 38-40). This demonstrates how Lady Macbeth is feeling guilty about Lady Macduff’s murder and how Macbeth has ruined everything with his nervousness.

Lady Macbeth also shows another form of guilt when she says “Wash your hands put on your nightgown. Look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.”(V. i. 54-56). This confirms how Lady Macbeth is constantly thinking about the deaths that she was part of, and how the feeling of guilt is taking over her life. Lady Macbeth shows her guilt throughout this whole scene.

She writes a letter, but the reader does not know what the letter says. It is possible she is writing about her guilty feelings, or writing an apology letter. Although the content of the letter is unknown, Lady Macbeth does end her life as a result of her guilty conscience.

Blood represents guilt as it is a significant image pattern in the play. Blood also represents murder, which results in the guilt of the characters in Macbeth . Duncan and Macbeth are loyal friends to each other, but once Macbeth finds out that he needs to kill his loyal kinsmen his feelings change. He is hesitant to commit this crime, but as a result of Lady Macbeth’s persistence he ends up murdering Duncan.

Macbeth makes the choice to kill Duncan. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine making the green one red.” (II. ii. 63-66). This illustrates that Macbeth is feeling guilt towards the death of Duncan. He is asking if the ocean will wash his hands clean, but instead he will stain the water red, from the blood on his hands.

The blood shows an image of guilt, the guilt is on his hands, and how Macbeth wants it to go away. Another form of blood is represented when Lady Macbeth says, “Here’s the smell of the blood, still, all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”(V. i. 44-45). This shows that Lady Macbeth’s hands still have traces of blood on them and even the best perfumes will not rid her of the smell.

This blood is from the killings she has taken part in, and it shows that the guilt can not be easily rid of, but will stick with her for a long time. Finally, blood is also shown through the murders that were committed. The murders formed a feeling of guilt, which is connected to why blood is an image of guilt through the deaths, but this may only be shown in Macbeth’s point of view.

Guilt is displayed a number of times through the internal conflict of Macbeth. Macbeth has to make many decisions throughout the play that revolve around his guilty conscience. Macbeth’s conflict at the beginning of the play is whether or not he should kill his kinsmen. He shows a guilty feeling before and after the crime is committed.

He is guilty before when he is deciding to kill his best friend, and he is guilty after because he went and killed his best friend, and as a result, he is guilty of committing this crime. Another form of internal conflict is when Macbeth says, “I’ll go no more: I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on’t again I dare not.”(II. ii. 53-55). This shows that after killing Duncan, Macbeth regrets his decision.

He is saying that he can not go back and that he is afraid to think about what he has done. This proves that he feels guilty over what he has done and that he can not go back in time. However, if he could, he would not have killed Duncan. He was faced with a conflict that he had to resolve, but he realized that he did not make the right decision. It also shows that in the play, Macbeth is not able to say “Amen”. Only because he can not agree with what people have to say, because he regrets his actions, and feels guilty for what he has done.

In conclusion, guilt is displayed through various representations in the play . The theme of guilt is expressed by Lady Macbeth, through blood imagery and Macbeth’s internal conflict. Guilt is a major factor in people’s lives and will continue to haunt the characters of Macbeth for a long time. Guilt can be a result of many things, as it is a feeling that remains forever.

Usually, this feeling occurs when an offense, crime, violation or wrong act is committed. It is the feeling of responsibility for this poor action that has been committed. Macbeth commits this poor action just to be happy, but in the end, he was only left with much remorse.

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Macbeth Essay Thesis Statements, Titles, and Topics

Post your thesis statements by March 25th, along with tentative titles and questions about essay topics. The essay prompt has been posted to Blackboard and you will also submit the final draft of your essay to Blackboard by Friday, April 3rd.

29 thoughts on “ Macbeth Essay Thesis Statements, Titles, and Topics ”

For my thesis, I would like to explore and analyze Lady Macbeth’s character and the development of her character throughout the play. I was thinking of looking into whether her development was largely influenced by Macbeth’s prophecy or if her character was the one to influence how Macbeth’s prophecy came to be. I’m having trouble wording if but I have a thesis to work from: In this essay, I will analyze Lady Macbeth’s character progression and whether or not a connection exists to Macbeth’s prophecy.

Kyla, go for it! I think you should focus on Lady Macbeth’s monologues in Act One, Scene Five and Act Five, Scene One.

Can I get Your thesis

Potential thesis: Although many blame the witches and their prophecies for Macbeth’s ill fate, it is actually his own fault. If Macbeth did not believe the witches’ prophecies, he probably wouldn’t have tried to control his “fate” which ended as a tragedy.

This is a great thesis and opens a lot of pathways for interpretation. You’ll have to explain why you put “fate” in scare quotes, as it suggests that you don’t believe fate is a major factor in the play. If you can do that, you’ll likely produce a lively discussion. Look to the debate on free will between Martin Luther and Erasmus in the “Contexts” section of the Norton Critical Edition.

I was thinking about using the idea of tyranny and masculinity for my thesis, such as other thanes or princes want to overthrow MacBeth because they felt that he was acting tyrannical. Lady MacBeth says she wants to unsex herself when she decides to kill Duncan and Malcolm tells MacDuff that he is “unknown to woman, never was forsworn” so it seems that being a man reinforces the right to kill someone. A rough thesis would be: MacBeth is right to be overthrown because he is acting tyrannical, and Malcolm will be a better king because he’s the son of King Duncan and he’s more manly than MacBeth.

Petvy, I think you’re onto something with the problem of tyranny in Macbeth. It’s not immediately clear how you could tie that in with the distortions of maculinity in the play in only four to five pages, so I’d suggest focusing on either tyranny or masculinity (or its corruption). In either case, you have to talk about why Macbeth becomes a tyrant: it has a lot to do with the ways he interprets the prophecies from the witches, who represent (along with Lady Macbeth) grotesque distortions of femininity.

Macbeth’s actions throughout the play are an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. He believes what the witches tell him about his fate and becomes intoxicated by the possibility of achieving power, which is the reason he commits all those evil acts and pays the ultimate price for it in the end, not because he is simply fulfilling his destiny.

This is promising, Ilya! Pick two or three scenes to focus on in your reading of Macbeth’s response to the prophecies.

Throughout the novel, there are many symbols used to depict evil. Light and darkness are amongst the most common ways to show that light is good and dark is bad. In a more analytical approach, we can see that without the light Macbeth is in the dark for too long and causes him to become blind to goodness. From the beginning, all that has been described to be dark or involved in darkness have affected Macbeth into becoming corrupt and mad, such as the ‘midnight’ witches and the absence of the candles that Lady Macbeth so persistently carried towards the end. A working thesis for me would be how the use of light and darkness ultimately affected/foreshadowed that Macbeth would become corrupted and even guilty for the actions he had taken.

Karyna, it’s important to remember that a novel is a certain genre of writing. Macbeth is a play. Jane Austen’s Emma (which we’ll read in a few weeks) is a novel.

Classifications aside, the light/dark theme in the play is a big topic with lots to think about. Can you narrow it down to certain things that happen in light versus in darkness? For instance, Macbeth worries that he’ll never be able to sleep soundly again after he murders Duncan. Is there something to be said about the imagery juxtaposing darkness with sleeplessness brought on by guilt?

Possible Thesis:

Darkness, concerning dusk, exceeds its function as a mere setting characteristic by acting as a symbol of foreboding. Approaching darkness (nightfall) mentioned as a setting descriptor is often followed by nefarious or immoral actions, such as murder.

I am most likely going to change the topic I’m writing on. If I’m unable to fully rationalize my thoughts for the other topic I had in mind, I’ll fall back onto this original thesis.

Cory, try and find a few passages where a character describes or reacts to the darkness. I’m wondering if the Porter might be a good character to look to. Banquo’s murderers might also be worth discussing. As for major characters, there are plenty who present responses to darkness, especially in Act II. And maybe there’s a parallel between the pervasive darkness in the play and Scotland’s peripheral position in relation to England. Scotland is a grim, wild, foul-weathered place: any parallels between the setting of the play and the qualities of darkness espoused in it?

The circumstances that surround Macbeth’s rise to power allude to an evil power. The witches were written into this play during Shakespeare’s time where hysteria took precedent. Despite Shakespeare’s time being different from Macbeth’s time, there is still an emphasis on morality and what is considered to be a ‘sinful’ act or righteous. The presence of witches and prophecies may have been used to let the audience understand the meteoric rise of Macbeth was not truly ‘good’ or ‘righteous’. The witches are shown to be malevolent, and Macbeth’s association with these otherworldly figures notions towards an unjust claim to power. These allusions to an evil power include the stress on the number 3, which is known to represent evil and unholiness. For example, there are three witches, three roles that Macbeth takes on, and three prophecies.

Sounds great, Chiara! There are some materials in the back of the Norton Critical Edition pertaining to the witches (Hecate in particular). Ian McKellen’s interview might be a good place to start.

In this paper I will argue that Macbeth’s endless ambition overpowers fate and his destiny is brought by his own free will.

Good thesis, Jordan. Discuss the claims about predestination and free will made by Martin Luther and Erasmus. Their essays are in the supplementary materials of the Norton Critical Edition of Macbeth.

Psychology and subjective reality are prominent themes in Macbeth; Banquo’s ghost, the floating dagger, voices, and blood spots are only imagined by Macbeth as he unravels throughout the play. Lady Macbeth’s insomnia and hand-washing shows the psychological effect the murders have had on her. In the end, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are both perpetrators of their own demise; they actively seek to fulfill Fate and in turn are plagued by their own minds.

Mary, these are great passages to focus on for your thesis. I like the insinuation you’re making here: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth try to manipulate Fate, but all they end up doing–over and over again beginning with the murder of Duncan–is speed up its process.

This is amazing, I am doing something similar to your thesis and took some ideas from yours thank you!

Thesis: Throughout the play, Macbeth’s actions and decisions that he’s made seem to show an underlying sense of fear that fuels them. Fear can be controlling and influential on human beings and can sometimes dictate the path of their lives, all of which can be said for the character of Macbeth. From the witches’ prophecy to the various murders he orchestrates, fear is used as a motivator within Macbeth to commit unspeakable actions and as a result, drove him into losing touch with his sense of sanity and reality, slowly becoming unhinged at the hands of fear.

Very good, Lanz! Highlight passages where a character implies or specifically mentions being afraid (or conversely, feeling courageous).

Potential Thesis Statement: By doing the wrong thing cause of greed, power, and other influences( In this case the witches) can often lead to negative outcomes, bad results, situations to become worse, and anxiety. This is what I’m thinking about using as a thesis statement, but still a little unsure. Sorry for the late response I thought the other Macbeth post was the forumn where I was suppose to write our blog response/thesis for the Macbeth essay originally.

Tayyab, this is an interesting general statement to make in relation to the events of the play, but maybe just focus on Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s responses to the witches’ prophecies. This way, you’ll have a coupe of very specific scenes towards which you can direct your close reading. As a bonus, you don’t have to spend time and energy wondering about the moral of the story. Focus instead on what the characters say and do and how and what these words and actions mean within the world of the play. Look to the supplementary materials in the back of the Norton Critical Edition for more guidance, and let me know if you have further questions.

My thesis will be about self perception and it’s connection to the choice that people believe they are supposed to make. In the case of MacBeth, he heard a prophecy and his self perception changed from being a thane to a king. Really late response but I couldn’t think of anything original til now.

Aiden, reorient your thesis to avoid making generalizations about “people.” Focus only on how self-perception troubles the characters in Macbeth, particularly as it pertains to what certain characters believe about fate versus free choice. Look to the essays by Luther and Erasmus on this topic for guidance.

For my second essay I plan to move forward to investigate Lady Macbeth’s psychosis. There’s much to analyze when it comes to Lady Macbeth’s behavior and speech. However, I’m afraid I’ve chosen a topic that is too big for a four to five-page essay. Should I focus on a specific act or scene for the essay? Additionally, I’m having difficulty wording my thesis. This is what I have so far …

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is an unconventional female character, who possesses a dangerous ambitiousness and ruthlessness to help Macbeth become King of Scotland. Her character encourages Macbeth to commit an evil act and unleashes something within hi. As more cruel murders take place, Lady Macbeth becomes unrecognizable through her anxious and erratic behavior.

I feel like I’m not really making a claim but just summarizing her character development in the play. Any suggestions or ideas are greatly welcomed!! Thank you!

Thesis: In Macbeth, his aligned actions had played to his rise and his downfall, which only proved that determinism took control of the entirety of Macbeth’s life and the world around him. 

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Notes on the Theme of Guilt in Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Back to: Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Only a person who knows good from bad will feel the guilt for doing something wrong. Guilt is one of the most important thematic concerns of the play Macbeth. Macbeth, the play’s protagonist has a strong sense of good and bad but his unsettling ambition overpowers his conscience.

His ambition is due to his lust for power for its own sake. He doesn’t want power for the responsibilities which comes along with it. So, after killing Duncan, ascending his throne, he does such deeds which he didn’t know of earlier and his inability to contain his conscience against the realisation of such misdeeds descends him into guilt and disintegration. 

At the beginning of the play, we see King Duncan genuinely acknowledging Macbeth’s bravery and grandeur as a fighting and victorious general but Macbeth’s heart is already corrupted by prophecies of the three witches.

His conflict is his knowledge of how he looks like and what he really is. He says, “ let not light see my black and deep desires…yet let that be which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.” 

By scene 7 in Act 1 , Macbeth hesitates by saying, “ we will proceed no further in this business. He hath honoured me, of late, and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. ”

This is where the playwright shows that the character is going to feel guilty. His awakened conscience is suppressed under the provocations made by Lady Macbeth . Both of them are to realise the graveness of their error and disintegrate inwardly.

The first psychic effect of his inner guilt is physically illustrated when he hallucinates of a bloody dagger in Act 2 . Lady Macbeth’s vulnerability to guilt is first shown when she thought of her father while looking at King Duncan asleep.

When Macbeth has finally committed the murder, he shouts, “ sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep. ” It means, he is going to be haunted by his conscience and confirming it he says, “ I am afraid to think what I have done. Look on’t again I dare not. ” 

As a vastly imaginative character, Macbeth summons vast visuals to express his tremendous guilt. He says, “ Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red. ”

Lady Macbeth combats to this with her already vulnerable self by saying, “ My hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white .” This tells us how the guilt has already started dividing their inner selves.

Afterwards, every time they mention the word “ blood ” it signals the further intensification of their guilt. Ironically, it is Lady Macbeth who first succumbs to her guilty conscience and descends into madness and finally dies.

Afterwards, Macbeth gives upon any reason and his final battle is almost suicidal. Macduff , a secondary character shows guilt too for abandoning his family but it is the guilt of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth which drives the plot and gives us an everlasting moral. 

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Macbeth (grades 9–1) york notes, william shakespeare, examiner's notes, you assessed this answer as grades 8–9 . hover over the highlighted text to read the examiner’s comments., question: read from act ii scene 2 ‘ methought i heard a voice cry, “sleep no more ...” ’ (line 38) to ‘ look on’t again, i dare not ’ (line 55). in this scene, macbeth has just returned from killing duncan..

Starting with this speech, explore how Shakespeare presents guilt in Macbeth .

Write about:

• how Shakespeare presents ideas about guilt in this extract
• how Shakespeare presents ideas about guilt in the play as a whole.

This scene comes after Macbeth has killed Duncan and he seems guilty straight away. He is hearing strange voices, which shows that he is upset. ‘Sleep no more!’ This shows that Macbeth is so guilty that he will never be able to sleep again.

He has murdered the king while he is sleeping, which is a deceitful thing to do especially as the king is in line to God. In Shakespeare’s time people believed in the Divine Right of Kings, which meant that there was a social hierarchy with God at the top. The king was next and so to murder a king would be considered even more awful than by today’s social values. Macbeth’s punishment for this is that his own sleep is murdered. Macbeth says ‘the innocent sleep’ showing that Duncan was blameless and this makes him more guilty for killing him. The two characters contrast and as the play goes on we see this more and more. Macbeth becomes a violent king, largely as a result of his guilt and fear of being exposed. Compared to Duncan, he is unpopular and disliked to the extent that Malcolm eventually gathers an army to overthrow him.

When he says ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefor Cawdor/Shall sleep no more’ he is talking about his titles that Duncan gave him. At the start of the play, Macbeth was Thane of Glamis and then Duncan gave him the title Thane of Cawdor as a reward for his efforts in the war. This was part of the witches’ prophecy that led to Macbeth killing Duncan. His two titles represent the old and new Macbeth and show that every part of him is guilty.

Then Lady Macbeth takes command and orders him to wash away the guilt. She says ‘wash this filthy witness from your hand’, which means get rid of the evidence.

She is also guilty because she has persuaded her husband to go through with the murder, though she doesn’t show it here. Earlier in the scene she says she couldn’t kill Duncan herself because he reminded her of her own father. Her part in the murder is not physical, though she does go back into Duncan’s room to lay the daggers on the guards. She is composed around the murder, whereas Macbeth’s guilt is evident from the start. Lady Macbeth’s guilt does seem to haunt her though and this reference to hand washing comes back later in the play when we see her sleepwalking and attempting to wash out a ‘damned spot’ from her hands. This is a metaphor for her feeling guilt. Lady Macbeth’s guilt leads to her madness.

Later in the play Macbeth wishes he could sleep like Duncan and be at rest. He is not able to gain any sense of peace because of his actions. His guilt makes him afraid of his friend Banquo and he ends up having him killed as well. The fact that he sends murderers to find and kill Banquo suggests that Macbeth is not prepared to risk the guilt of killing another friend with his own hands.

Overall Shakespeare uses this scene to show Macbeth’s guilt very clearly and shows how the guilt will get worse for both of them later in the play.

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Ralph Fiennes Sidles His Way Into Power as Macbeth

By Helen Shaw

Simply getting to the almost totally sold-out monster hit “Macbeth” in Washington, D.C., which has already been staged in Liverpool, London, and Edinburgh, contains its own, particular adventure. Produced in the capital by the Shakespeare Theatre Company, which has two venues in D.C., the show is actually being mounted offsite, in an old television soundstage, basically a cavernous concrete hangar in one of the city’s industrial stretches. (This is perhaps why New York doesn’t get a stop on the “Macbeth” tour—our theatrical stock is insufficiently gritty.) Outside, audience members negotiate a wilderness of warehouses and big-box parking lots; inside, we spend time in a maze of dark, clubby rooms made luxe with velvety drapes. Finally, we walk to our seats via a path through a hyperrealistic no man’s land: rubble, the sound of distant bombs, and a soldier with a thousand-yard stare, sitting in front of a burnt-out car beneath a stunned and flickering street light.

Even just that lone taste of immersion promises both sensation and intimacy. The director Simon Godwin (who is also S.T.C.’s artistic director and an associate director at London’s National Theatre) delivers on the latter: the purpose-built theatre inside the more than forty-thousand-foot studio is actually relatively small, so the play’s stars—Ralph Fiennes as Macbeth and Indira Varma as his Lady—seem quite close. Both actors are also familiar, and come cloaked in associations of unalloyed evil and political homicide, respectively. Fiennes was nominated for an Oscar for his role as the Nazi Amon Göth in “Schindler’s List,” and is feared by legions of moviegoers for his viper-faced Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” films; Varma played the scheming mother of the murderous Sand Snakes on “Game of Thrones.” Of course this slithering pair will team up to kill their liege, King Duncan (Keith Fleming), at the vague prompting of three fortune-telling witches.

Up-to-date military trappings have become de rigueur when stars take on Shakespeare: Daniel Craig donned army fatigues for an Off Broadway production of “Othello”; Florence Pugh did the same, in a televised adaptation of “King Lear,” as did Fiennes himself, in his own film of “Coriolanus,” from 2011. This production, with costumes designed by Frankie Bradshaw, is no exception, but here, Fiennes, playing the ambitious Scottish thane, wants us to think he’s unworthy of his combat boots. His obsequious, unmilitary physicality, particularly in the first hour and a half of the play, can be extreme: he sneaks and sidles; he rotates his arms so that they swing like a monkey’s; he keeps his shoulders high and tucks his hips, appearing to recede even as he moves forward. In a company full of ramrod-straight spines, his convex slump makes him look like the one guy who hasn’t gone through basic training. (Maybe he had bone spurs?) Some of his intentionally strange performance is poor stagecraft: Godwin allows Fiennes to occasionally mime his lines, to a sometimes ridiculous degree. When Macbeth, whose guilt is making him insomniac, bemoans the loss of “sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,” for example, Fiennes helpfully indicates his own sleeve. At least he didn’t mime “sleep.”

To misquote the wrong Shakespeare play, there’s method in much of this madness. Fiennes’s weedy Macbeth is no alpha, but nonetheless he gets what he wants. Nearly half a millennium after Shakespeare’s death, we still recognize the trend of absurd, unqualified leaders who accept the reins of power from sleepwalking aristocrats. In Washington, in an election year, one’s thoughts on that topic form an extra drumbeat underneath the text. Godwin’s contemporary interpretation seems to lean toward Russia—the doomed King Duncan wears fur on the collar of his royal greatcoat—and when Duncan passes by bluff, capable Banquo (Steffan Rhodri) to reward oily Macbeth for putting down a rebellion, it immediately seems suspicious. Is this how Duncan maintains power? Putin reportedly promotes weak men; perhaps, we think, Duncan does, too.

Godwin’s political reading is savvy, but the famously magical elements of the play don’t always seem to have the full force of his attention. The witches who corrupt Macbeth’s ready mind, wearing bleach-stained overalls and fingerless gloves while lounging about on the set’s faux-concrete stairs, for instance, look less like “midnight hags” than bored art students. The sound designer Christopher Shutt does fill the air with eerie screeches and compositions by Asaf Zohar that go heavy on the spooky strings, but so much reliance is placed on these atmospheric elements that they grow obtrusive. The Macbeths’ palace at Dunsinane is represented as a fancy brutalist condo—the set, with gray stairs leading to frosted glass doors, was also designed by Bradshaw—and in one underwhelming attempt at spectacle, a trickle of red-tinged water drips down its walls. What was probably envisioned as a tide of blood just looks like a problem with rising damp.

The performances Godwin elicits from his actors are more daring. Varma’s Lady Macbeth is brusque and goal-oriented, capable of bustling her sometimes balky spouse into action. She’s not overtly malevolent but, rather, she’s a real housewife intent on getting tasks—kill a king, order a crown—ticked off her checklist. (Varma’s touch with the language is exquisitely deft; she lets us see the moment her slow-moving conscience finally catches up to her too-efficient haste.) Godwin is offering a “banality of evil” reading of the gory old tragedy, which requires his leads to shuck off a great deal of their movie-star majesty. When Hannah Arendt was writing about the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, she noted that the Nazi war criminal “was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché.” His mind, she saw, had been smoothed by little sayings that allowed him to excuse his own monstrosity. Macbeth, having met the witches in what is surely the most astonishing encounter of his life, says, “Come what come may / Time, and the hour, runs through the roughest day.” Audaciously, Godwin and Fiennes interpret Shakespeare’s aphorism as the kind of meaningless cant that lubricates a man’s internal slide toward murder. At last, when Fiennes reaches the banquet scene at the play’s midpoint, and we see his nervous attempts at playing both gracious host and confident king, all his weird, capering, Ed Grimley-style anxiousness clicks into place. Ah, of course. Even after the four-star generals quit the cabinet, insecure clowns are the ones who will kill us all.

After intermission, the show gallops toward its ending. The adaptation, by Emily Burns, has cut a comic character and increased the number of defections from Macbeth’s administration, and Fiennes, as if shocked by his character’s loneliness, finally begins to deliver his speeches with simultaneous introspection and command. The culminating fights are fantastic, conducted not with swords but with machetes, which clang away in the smoky dark. So it’s odd that what I’ll actually remember from this blockbuster show is a moment of silence.

One of the puzzles of staging “Macbeth”—harder to solve than how to dress the witches—is the Macduff issue. Macduff (played here by Ben Turner) is one of Macbeth’s rough equals, another thane, but one who puts the interests of Scotland above personal ambition. Shakespeare reveals his villain-protagonist’s foil late in the plot: Macduff only stands out from a miscellaneous herd of Scottish lairds once Macbeth sends assassins after his family. Why should this be the guy to run Macbeth to earth and not, say, one of Duncan’s much aggrieved sons? To answer that question, Godwin finds a way to rebalance the play.

He does it entirely through timing. When, quite late in the drama, a man brings Macduff the news of his wife and children’s slaughter, Shakespeare gives the traveller an odd, misleading message to deliver: he first assures Macduff that his family is well, and then slowly, oblique phrase by oblique phrase, reveals that they are gone. Godwin has Turner stand stock still and silent, for what feels like minutes, as he takes in the information. He asks a clarifying question, then again falls silent. The ambient cello and night owls are quiet, for once, and the pace, at last, rests. Turner is nailed to the spot—“What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam / At one fell swoop?” Macduff plants himself like the steady leg of a compass, and the whole play must pivot around him. Agitated, scampering Macbeth doesn’t know it off in Dunsinane, but his headlong rush to power has been stopped, here, by one unmoving man. ♦

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The Murderers

In order to ensure his destiny and claim the Scottish throne, Macbeth recruits a group of murderers to go after his most threatening enemies. He first meets with two murderers in Act III, Scene 1, and when they prepare to attack Banquo and Fleance, a third murderer appears. While killing Macbeth’s opponents is the murderers’ most obvious responsibility, their presence in the play also works to reflect the subtle shifts in Macbeth’s character as his power grows. King Duncan is the first character to die in the play, and Macbeth carries out the murder himself after much convincing from his wife. By Act III, the initial hesitation and guilt that he experienced seems to disappear as he not only calls for Banquo’s death himself, he also manipulates others into killing on his behalf. This shift reflects the decreasing influence of Macbeth’s conscience and his growing sense of greed, both of which the murderers exacerbate by agreeing to his demands. They support Macbeth’s assertion that Banquo has treated them poorly, for example, and they return to kill Lady Macduff and her children despite their innocence. The murderers ultimately allow Macbeth to feel in control of his fate.

While the three Murderers all act together, their dialogue reveals subtle, individual details about each of them. The first murderer has the most lines as he speaks in both Acts III and IV, and this renders him the unofficial leader of the group. He gives instructions as they prepare to attack Banquo and Fleance, delivers the news of Fleance’s escape to Macbeth, and kills Lady Macduff’s son. According to his conversation with Macbeth in Act III, Scene 1, this bold attitude stems from the frustrations and sorrows that characterize his life. The second murderer, while less prominent in terms of dialogue, appears driven by anger. He expresses an unrestrained disdain for the world around him that leads to reckless behavior. The identity of the third murderer, however, is unclear and serves as the source of much debate. Arriving unannounced in Act III, Scene 3, he appears to have more personal knowledge about Banquo than the other two murderers. This detail, in addition to his response that Macbeth sent him, has led some scholars to suggest that the third murderer is Macbeth himself in disguise. Others propose that this mysterious figure is another one of Macbeth’s political allies or a spy sent to supervise the murderers. Regardless of the third Murderer’s true identity, his appearance in the play emphasizes the high stakes that Macbeth places on the deaths of Banquo and Fleance.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Macbeth Guilt — Macbeth’s Character And His Guilt

Macbeth’s Character and His Guilt

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Peter Morgan Turns His Pen From ‘The Crown’ to the Kremlin

His new play “Patriots,” now on Broadway, follows Putin’s rise to power and the Russian oligarchs who mistakenly thought he’d be their puppet.

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By Maureen Dowd

Going from Princess Diana, a lovely icon who generated waves of sympathy, to Vladimir Putin, an icy villain who generates waves of disdain, might be difficult for some writers.

Not Peter Morgan.

After pulling back the curtain on the British royal family for six seasons of “The Crown,” Morgan was keen to move on. He had an idea for a play about the oligarchs who, in the 1990s, helped propel an obscure Putin to power and then had to watch as their Frankenstein changed the course of Russian history in a disastrous way.

The resulting drama, “Patriots,” which opens on Broadway on April 22, offered Morgan a different way to approach recent history, and a new challenge: switching from the royals, who are household names but not ultimately very powerful, to oligarchs, who are super powerful but not generally household names.

Morgan enjoys writing about the vilified, giving them a fighting chance. In “Patriots,” he creates a jigsaw of four Russian men, their fates intertwining in the post-Soviet era, who represent a Byzantine spectrum of moral values.

“It’s just a delicious combination of characters,” Morgan, 60, told me, in an interview at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in Times Square. “There’s a sort of violence, whereas in ‘The Crown,’ there’s this politeness and there’s repression, and it’s very female. There’s something very male, very violent about this play. It felt like a natural thing to do, having spent so much time in the one world to go into another world just to relax a little.”

There were several oligarchs who helped Putin rise from a K.G.B. apparatchik in Leningrad to autocrat in the Kremlin. Morgan chose the most colorful of them for his protagonist: Boris Berezovsky, who cast himself as “the Jew behind the czar.”

Morgan tailors the tale to do one of the things he does best: One character self-destructs, and another exploits that spiral.

Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair onscreen in a trilogy of Morgan opuses, “The Queen” with Helen Mirren, “The Deal” and “The Special Relationship,” told me that Morgan “finds a moment that is able to ripple out in front and behind, and illuminate what matters.”

Morgan said he loves “riveting personal interactions” with a backdrop of history, when you see the impetus for an event and realize “it’s because of envy, or it’s because of persecution or it’s because of jealousy or because of love.”

Despite the model of Shakespeare, he thinks that we too often tend to separate the emotional and psychological from our reading of history and politics.

“In a sense, I enjoy painting with a brush that is not too realistic, because that’s what drama can do,” he said. “We have cameras for verisimilitude and for likeness.”

Morgan is known — and oft chided — for mixing research and invention, looking for an underlying dramatic truth rather than pure accuracy. As with “The Crown,” he turned to a flock of advisers, this time Russian ones, for “Patriots.” He said he wanted to be careful not to demonize Russia. And he spent time with people who were close to Berezovsky.

He traces the rise and fall of Berezovsky (Michael Stuhlbarg), a math prodigy — “a golden child,” as a teacher calls him in the play — who built a fortune in cars, oil and TV and became a political power. He even had his own exclusive private club in Moscow.

“If there was a rock star of that era,” Morgan said, “if there was an iconic character who most typified the indulgence, the excess, in a sense the lawlessness of oligarchy, it would be him. I was interested in somebody that everybody felt was magnetic.”

Nina L. Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at the New School in Manhattan and Nikita S. Khrushchev’s great-granddaughter, was one of Morgan’s advisers on Russian history. Sitting with us, she offered her gloss on Berezovsky: “He’s the King Lear. He’s the most tragic figure you can imagine.”

Berezovsky blithely bribed and plundered. One security official told my colleague Steven Lee Myers for his biography of Putin, “ The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin ,” that Berezovsky divided people into two categories: “A condom in its packaging and a condom that has been used.” Once in power, Putin, who had been Berezovsky’s protégé, checked the power of oligarchs, including him. And Berezovsky came to see Putin as a killer who was snuffing out reforms implemented by Boris Yeltsin.

“The thing that sent me straight to my laptop, as it were,” Morgan told me, “was the tragedy of Berezovsky, something about having all those ideals and then being shattered and outmaneuvered.”

Khrushcheva interjected dryly: “Berezovsky and ideals. There’s a little bit of a stretch, right?”

Morgan defended his antihero: “The thing that Boris had to take to his grave is that he weaponized Putin through his own transgressions, being so voraciously greedy, stealing from the Russian state.” Once Putin got to the top and clamped down on the oligarchs, Berezovsky, stripped of power, became “a reluctant revolutionary.”

Other historic figures are brought into the mix. There is Alexander Litvinenko (Alex Hurt), who worked for the federal security service and investigated the bombing of Berezovsky’s car in 1994 , which left his chauffeur decapitated. He grew close to Berezovsky, became disillusioned with Putin and defected to Britain, where, in 2006, he was poisoned with polonium-210 , a radioactive isotope, and died.

Then there is the luxe oligarch Roman Abramovich (Luke Thallon), described as “the kid” when Berezovsky first meets him in the play and agrees to go into the oil business with him and become his protector. They too fall out, and in 2011 Berezovsky sues Abramovich in London, seeking billions, and loses. The judge calls Berezovsky “an unimpressive and inherently unreliable witness who regarded truth as transitory.”

Sonia Friedman, the play’s producer, said that while Morgan had initially set out to write the story of “Boris as a kingmaker,” he made Putin more central because “as the play was developing, the world was changing around the play.”

The drama is animated by the shifting relationship between Berezovsky and Putin.

When we first encounter Putin — played by Will Keen, a “Crown” alum who won an Olivier Award last year after the play’s successful London run — he’s a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg politely rebuffing a bribe from Berezovsky, who wants to give the politician a Mercedes in return for letting him set up a car dealership.

Putin says he’s happy to keep driving his old Zaporozhets: “It has sentimental value. It used to belong to my parents.”

At this point, the woman next to me, the night I saw the play, called out “Awwwww!” impressed with Putin’s filial affection.

“I think you put anyone on stage, and you cannot help but humanize them,” said Rupert Goold, the director. “That’s true of Macbeth.”

Berezovsky shepherds the mild-mannered young pol’s career, pulling him into Yeltsin’s inner circle — “letting a form of the devil into his orbit,” as Goold puts it. When the unlikely Putin ascends to the presidency — and Stalin’s dacha — he has no intention of being Berezovsky’s puppet, or even ally.

As Putin tells his former mentor, people have grown tired of “your treason and treachery, of your criminality and your disloyalty, of your perfidy and your whining and your thieving and your bribes and your decadence — all of which you dress up as patriotism and some kind of ‘political movement.’”

MORGAN, WHO LOVES WRITING about power, saw the abuse of power at an early age. His German Jewish father fled before the war to escape the Nazis, and his Roman Catholic Polish mother fled after the war to escape the Soviets. They raised Peter in Wimbledon.

“The culture in the house that I grew up in was: You can lose anything overnight,” he said. “It was a very, very Jewish culture that I grew up in, but also people who’d lost everything. Immigrants who come to a country with nothing. Both of my parents came to the U.K. with a paper bag.”

Does Berezovsky’s Jewishness inform the play?

“A lot of the first generation of oligarchs were Jewish,” Morgan said. “Interestingly, Putin has a very positive relationship with Jews. There’s nothing antisemitic about Putin, I don’t think.”

Morgan describes his characters as “four people with very different views about patriotism, what’s best for Russia, and very different views of each other.”

After Berezovsky’s death, Putin’s aides claimed that the castoff puppet master had written the president, apologizing for his “mistakes” and asking to come home to Russia; Berezovsky’s last girlfriend said it was true. Morgan had this in the London version but left it out of the Broadway version because, as Goold said, they had “one too many endings.”

(At the first Broadway preview, Stuhlbarg was able to go on as Berezovsky, even though the day before he had been hit with a rock by a homeless man in Central Park; in an odd twist, the suspect was caught near the Russian consulate on the Upper East Side.)

Losing the London court case to Abramovich broke Berezovsky, both financially and emotionally. Seven months after the verdict, he was dead . He was found hanging in his bathroom in his mansion outside London. People are still arguing whether it was a suicide or a murder.

Morgan said that originally he wanted “to make it really unambiguously a suicide, because if you put me on a lie-detector test, I would probably say that’s what it was. I’ve gone down that rabbit hole so many times. I’ve said, ‘Why was there no camera footage of anybody? There were no cars leaving. He was found in a bathroom locked on the inside.’”

He asked Khrushcheva where she stood on the matter. “I am one of those people who think that you can expect everything and anything from the K.G.B.,” she said, adding that she wouldn’t put anything past Putin “ever.”

After the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny’ s death in February in an Arctic penal colony, Morgan decided to make the cause more ambiguous. “I kept thinking that it was almost a disrespect to Navalny, and a disrespect to the other political prisoners to put Boris’s death as unambiguously a suicide,” he said, adding, “There was known to be a hit squad in the U.K. at the time.”

Russian oligarchs are of particular interest in London, where “Patriots” originated. Litvinenko was killed there. Berezovsky went into self-imposed exile and died there. Abramovich was the owner of the Chelsea Football Club until forced by sanctions to sell it . “These are all characters that we all felt connected to,” Morgan said.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the death of Navalny, have fueled curiosity about Putin and his rise. At one point in the play, Putin rages that Berezovsky has sent millions to help fund Ukraine’s Orange Revolution “against his own country — the country he claims to love.”

“The reality of Ukraine,” Morgan said, “has somehow seeped into the way in which an audience responds to Putin.”

I asked Morgan if Berezovsky was really so different from American billionaires who finance everything from presidential campaigns to Supreme Court vacations to satellite use over Ukraine? He replied that “oligarchy exists everywhere.”

“They have the power and influence of nation-states,” he said. “They’re supra governmental, and they’re supranational, actually.”

And what if an American oligarch cuts out the middlemen and simply makes an unlikely climb to power himself? I ask Khrushcheva if she understands Trump’s obsession with Putin.

She said that Putin was trained as a K.G.B. recruiter and therefore was capable of “amazing charm,” a “nobody pimple who came from Leningrad” who managed to leave the intelligentsia and the oligarchs “absolutely smitten.”

She surprised Morgan when she said she would rather have dinner with the murderous Vladimir than the roguish Boris. “I met him twice and he was probably as charming as Bill Clinton,” Khrushcheva said of Putin.

Outside the theater the night of the first preview, I chatted with Morgan and his girlfriend, the actress Gillian Anderson, who played Margaret Thatcher in “The Crown” and stars as anchorwoman Emily Maitlis in the new Netflix drama “Scoop,” about the BBC interview with Prince Andrew about his seamy friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The Netflix power duo — the streaming giant is a co-producer of “Patriots” and is considering a screen adaptation — appeared cozy, both with startling blue eyes and a casual-glam look, greeting friends and fans. So how is the romance going, I wondered.

“We’re just two old people trying to be in love,” said the very private Morgan. “Stop it!”

And what about the royals? When he sees the monarchy roiled by searing dramas, doesn’t he get the urge to go once more, unto the breach, and explore the new traumas of Harry and Meghan, Kate and William, Charles and Camilla? Isn’t Meghan’s American Riviera Orchard brand a siren song for a royal troubadour?

“Not even for a split second,” he said.

Maureen Dowd is an Opinion columnist for The Times. She won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. More about Maureen Dowd