Examples Of Mental Illness In Macbeth

In William Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Macbeth, the character of Macbeth is easily influenced by his wife and starts to spiral in his attempt to gain ambition. This is evident as he begins to behave in unexpected ways, seeing things, and negative thinking. This actively demonstrates that he is easily capable of changing drastically throughout this play by going through traumatic situations including his wife that calls him a coward if wasn’t be able to do so. In judgment of his character he would be diagnosed with schizophrenia for multipipe reasons. As being seen, Macbeth exhibits symptoms of schizophrenia to include: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and negative thoughts.

His PTSD may have been brought on by either his exploits on the battlefield, killing Duncan and Banquo, or both. Macbeth fits all four categories for symptoms of PTSD. First, he relieves his experiences again through seeing Banquo’s ghost in a hallucination. His response when he sees it is, “Avaunt and quit my sight! Let the / earth hide thee”

Macbeth takes action against another that he believes is going to overthrow him, Macduff. This is another example of the symptom, paranoia, that he faces. Macbeth is shown an apparition that says “beware of Macduff,” this brings about his paranoia that Macduff is going to kill him. Miller and Mason say; “People suffering from schizophrenia may act in ways that are unusual for them. For instance, some people develop very poor judgment or behave in sexually inappropriate ways.

During the reading of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth started showing signs of a couple different disorders. She showed a couple examples of panic disorder, while also showing multiple examples of post-traumatic stress disorder. Out of all the disorders that Lady Macbeth could be suffering from, I believe that these two best reflect Lady Macbeth’s problems. The first disorder that I looked into to try diagnosing Lady Macbeth is panic disorder. There is multiple times in the book where she says some things that make it seem like she is suddenly scared, or that she thinks there is serious danger.

Macbeth is the main character in William Shakespeare’s drama, Macbeth.  Macbeth was still in shock from the killing of King Duncan, this was the turning point in his sanity. He experiences from a lifelong illness called paranoid schizophrenia, which is the presence of auditory hallucinations or prominent delusional thoughts about persecution or conspiracy. In the play he shows himself suffering from this disorder when he he has hallucinations becomes convinced of things that aren’t necessarily true, and by his patronizing behavior. Hallucinations can be quite frightening experiences.

This disease had helped motivate his murders in multiple ways. Schizophrenia is where the person has delusions that someone or something is plotting against them. They can also experience auditory hallucinations, hearing things that are not concrete. A belief that there are powerful beings is also common in people with Paranoid Schizophrenia. They will spend excessive amounts of time planning how to protect themselves from others.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels and acts. A person with schizophrenia has a hard time believing what is real and what isn't. The majority of people with this disorder are not violent nor dangerous. There is no exact cause of this illness, but scientists think that the environment and genetics have an impact on it. (WebMd)

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects a person’s ability to think, feel, and behave. It often develops in men aged in their early twenties, however, is rarely found in men over the age of forty. Causes of schizophrenia include genetics, prenatal environment, brain chemistry, and substance use. To be diagnosed with the disease, a patient must persistently exhibit two or more of the above symptoms, as stated by the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Bryanna E. McCool Mrs. Dean British Literature 25 January 2018 Mental Illness in Shakespeare’s Macbeth The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, a play wrought with prophecies, deception, guilt, and death, brings light to the symptoms of mental illnesses and their effects on the human brain’s ability to reason, trust, and act in times of pressure. Both Macbeth and his lady are plagued by mental illness, and the effects of their illness only grow as the play evolves. Macbeth’s symptoms of schizophrenia and anxiety, as well as Lady Macbeth’s anxiety as well as hallucinations that eventually push her to suicide prove that not only can mental illness alter the way a person sees a situation, but it can also drive them to harm others and themselves.

What are some thoughts that come to mind when a person brings up the word schizophrenia? According to Ford-Martin, “Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder or group of disorders marked by disturbances in thinking, emotional responsiveness, and behavior” (2139). The character, Alice, from the film, Alice in Wonderland is a perfect example of schizophrenia, and the director, Tim Burton, further emphasizes the disorder by his use of film techniques. One characteristic of schizophrenia is delusions. According to Fallon, “The delusions of paranoid schizophrenics usually involve thoughts of being persecuted or harmed by others or exaggerated opinions of their own importance, but may also reflect feelings of jealousy or excessive religiosity” (2957).

The documentary Schizophrenia: Stolen minds, Stolen lives covers the stories of a few different individuals who have suffered from schizophrenia and talks generally about the disease. Schizophrenia is a disease that evokes psychosis. Many patients experience delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, catatonic behavior, and/or lack of emotion, pleasure, or initiation. The disease effects about 1% of the population and typically begins to effect people in late adolescence—early adulthood.

The character is suffering and this depiction of Macbeth is believed to have a modern mental illness. Macbeth’s past definitely can support the idea of his disturbed state of mind as we watch the character change throughout the film.

Schizophrenia is usually undiagnosed until later in life. Just like PDD, PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder, is a mental disorder that can also affect people of any age. PTSD is caused/ triggered by a traumatic experience or life altering event. With these things in mind, one can easily say that the troubled minds of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth can be due to a number of any modern day psychological

- The disorder that is portrayed is that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. 3) What symptoms were presented, that depicted the disorder indicated? Please detail that moment in the film. - He sees and interacts with things that are not there and that are invisible, he soon becomes scared and paranoid about the simplest things that don’t even exist.

Some people with schizophrenia also experience dissociative identity disorder and will have hallucinations of their alter self/selves. In one instance, Tyler blows up the narrator's apartment along with all of his possessions. Of course, it was actually the narrator who did this to himself but he is unaware of this fact. He believes Tyler has committed this heinous act. This is how many undiagnosed patients operate.