Shakespeare Themes - Guilt

Guilt can be damaging when peole feel it unecessarily, but it can eat away at a person if they don't take the necessary steps to obtain forgiveness. Burying it or pretending it's not there doesn't work. Look how Macbeth is eaten away by guilt so that he becomes paranoid, and his wife who was softer than she thought was driven mad by guilt. In Hamlet Claudius feels guilt but won't take the necessary steps to get rid of it - repenting and making good the damage done as far as he can.

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