Family is defined as any group of people related by blood or marriage. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are a family experiencing unhappiness in a few of its most concentrated forms. The many shapes of unhappiness can be traced back to three main sources of depression: jealousy, fear, and guilt. Macbeth and the Lady's uniqueness arises from the fact that all three of these basic unhappinesses are felt as the result of one event. The Macbeth family's jealousy sprang from the promise of more power, this jealousy led to fear, which subsequently led to guilt.
Give a man a fiefdom and he'll play you until the entire kingdom is singing his tune, such is the way with men in high places. Macbeth felt a pang of jealousy when was told by the weird sisters that he would ascend the throne. If it were not for his wife's calculating devices, this pang would have subsided and been forgotten.
Lady Macbeth by George Cattermole.
English: Poster of Thos. W. Keene in William Shake...
The sleepwalking Lady MacbethWith the help of the Lady, Macbeth worked himself into a fit of jealousy so strong it took control of his actions. The death of the king would not have been possible without the compounded greed of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
Jealousy is the emotion of greed, the emotion of self-betterment in the light of others who have surpassed us. Jealousy is the quality which drives us to become superior. It is, perhaps what evolution would feel like if it could be felt. At a certain point, when this feeling becomes too powerful to control, it will take hold of our minds and use them for its own purposes. When this seizure subsides, we have a chance to come to terms with what we have done; this is rarely a constructive moment. When action is taken with jealousy in mind, the result is...