The first thing to note here is that you would need to go against the text of the play as it would have been understood by the original audience. There is no actual evidence that Shakespeare was portraying Macbeth as insane; instead, he is an example of a man corrupted by power and ambition. In order to complete your assignment, you would need to do an anachronistic reading of the play.
The first line of...
The first thing to note here is that you would need to go against the text of the play as it would have been understood by the original audience. There is no actual evidence that Shakespeare was portraying Macbeth as insane; instead, he is an example of a man corrupted by power and ambition. In order to complete your assignment, you would need to do an anachronistic reading of the play.
The first line of argument you might take (albeit a very anachronistic one) would be to cast doubt on the existence of the witches. You would argue that the story of the witches is inherently improbable, and that no rational person believes in magic and divination. From this assumption, you would then argue that Macbeth's belief in the existence of the witches was evidence that he was subject to hallucinations. Hearing voices that command a person to commit violent acts is a symptom of schizophrenia as is the grandiosity of what these hallucinations seem to be suggesting to him.
Similarly, the appearance of Banquo's ghost, invisible to other people, could be seen to confirm a diagnosis of insanity.
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