Interior Monologue on Lady Macbeth

First came the pride, an overwhelming sense of achievement, an accomplishment due to great ambition, but slowly and enduringly surged a world of guilt and confusion, the conscience which I once thought diminished, began to grow, soon defeating the title and its rewards. Slowly the unforgotten memories from that merciless night overcame me and I succumbed to the incessant and horrific images, the bloody dagger, a lifeless corpse. I wash, I scrub, I tear at the flesh on my hands, trying desperately to cleanse myself of the blood. But the filthy witness remains, stained, never to be removed.

I believe there are two kinds of people in life; the kind that let things happen and the kind that make things happen. I prefer to think of myself as a person who writes her destiny not awaits it. So I ask myself, is it such a crime to want the best for you and your better half? Was it such a terrible deed, to lust after power and status like a young girl after a dashing beau. The victory, our status, my position, my power has fast become a reality, a reality which was being threatened by the growing suspicion of Banquo. It had to be done, his cut throat, seemed the only way, his murder the saviour of my triumph. But now see the error in my ways, the corruption in my thought. The guilt of one man’s blood was almost unbearable, the guilt of another is inescapable, growing, it is becoming vicious like a savage dog locked up waiting to be released. I am forced to bear it, alone I must I endure it while it tears at me from inside.

I am a victim of my own deceitful plan. I thought myself the player, the holder of the pieces, master of my emotion, now I realise I am merely a pawn, a pawn in a game that has spiralled out of control, a game of life and death, empowered by very own selfish aspiration. What possessed me? Why did I assume I could play the role of the almighty? Upon hearing news from my beloved Macbeth of the witches’ prophecies I found myself overwhelmed by desire, by greed. I knew that Macbeth, with his pure and noble disposition would never posses the ambition, the drive, to make the necessary sacrifices in order to fulfil the glory-promising prophecies of the imperfect speakers. And so, I signed my own death warrant, I ‘poured mine spirits into thine ear’, I persuaded my innocent husband to commit a crime which I and not he, deserved to pay the price for.

I am a murderer. Perhaps the crime was not committed by my hands, but it was