ABSTRACT
Macbeth dramatizes the functioning of conscience in the sinful mind. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth take the path of willfully ignoring conscience as they kill their sworn king, and in the aftermath of that action they experience conscience redounding upon them. Lady Macbeth’s unfolds slowly, finally communicating to her in Act 5. But Macbeth’s conscience works immediately and expansively in the moments after the murder, dominating his thoughts and the drama of Act 2. These two parts of the play furnish a portrait of how conscience communicates-how it sounds and looks, and how it feels to find oneself within the workings of conscience.1
