In both Macbeth and King Lear, Shakespeare deals with the human tendency to ignore truths about the self. Robert B. Heilman in 'Twere Best not Know Myself: Othello, Lear, Macbeth describes it as "the stubborn clinging to blinders" (Heilman 93) that King Lear and Lady Macbeth do so desperately throughout. This is true more so for Lady Macbeth than Lear; he has lived his life "clinging to blinders" imposed by his court and is finally becoming aware of himself, while Lady Macbeth begins her self-blinding within the events of Macbeth. Josephine Waters Bennet in The Storm Within: the Madness of Lear describes Lear's failing as "his want of insight, his 'blindness of heart', which constitutes his tragic flaw" (150). In actuality this is true for both Lear and Lady Macbeth: they ignore the truths of their character and actions. Both plays begin with Lear and Lady Macbeth demanding unreasonable requests from their loved ones—the effects of which spark a series of events that eventually lead both to insanity. Yet Lear manages to escape his madness by realizing his human frailty, while Lady Macbeth attempts to embrace an unnatural emotional change that drives her into the madness of an incapacitating and incriminating cycle of reenactment until her death.

               Lear's perception of himself is powerful and un-human at the beginning of King Lear. During the initial scene of the play, after Lear has lost his temper with Cordelia, his loyal servant Kent tries to calm him. Lear responds with "Peace Kent! /Come not between the dragon and his wrath" and also, "The bow is bent and drawn. Make from the shaft" (Shakespeare I.i.121-122, 143). He is the royal "we," a dragon, an armed and taut bow before he is a man. Kent tries to convey to Lear of the truth of his situation and demeanor, calling him an "old man" and his actions "folly" and "hideous rashness" (ll. 146, 150, 152). Lear reacts to this declaration by banishing Kent (ll. 181). At this point Lear has not accepted his own mortality or questioned his judgment, and is far from the point of accepting such truth from a servant. However Kent is not the only character that tells the king that he has grown old yet acts unwisely; both Goneril and Regan, and also the Fool remind him of his aged state. It seems that Lear's sheltered experience in court is permanently lost the moment that Cordelia tells him the truth concerning her love for him; after this moment, many follow suit and begin to lay bare his flaws. It is his rejection of this reality that breeds Lear's madness. Bennett argues that Lear's "furious desire to 'punish home', to torture…is the cause of Lear's madness, his bitter, futile resentment, his frustrated will which has driven him to insane hatred" (Bennett 143). Though this is the nature in which Lear most manifests his madness, and is a definite factor in his mental spiral, I take this idea further—that Lear's bitter nature is because of his rejection of his own humanity and flaws. These truths have been concealed from him for the whole of his life, so it is not unnatural that he immediately rejects them. Bennett also discusses how the initial desire of Lear to divide his kingdom as "a display, on a grand scale, of selfish lack of concern for others" as "Civil war is implicit in any division of England" (151). This act is once again driven by his disinterestedness in the effects such a division would cause. He is not concerned with the possible friction such a decision creates, as he considers himself to be consistently correct. This is the problem caused by his court, which he mentions later while in the throes of madness, saying that they "told me I had white hairs in my /beard ere the black ones were there. To say ay and /no everything I said ay and no to" (Shakespeare IV.vi.97-99). Unfortunately for Lear, because he was unable to see his human and subsequently flawed nature, he developed a temper and tendency to be irrational. At this point in his life, Lear is forced to experience an intense trial in order to prompt a stark inner change, and therefore to reach a moment of reckoning and right his wrongs.

               Although Lear realizes quite early on that he has wronged Cordelia, he is not yet ready to ask her for forgiveness. When Regan tells him to ask Goneril for forgiveness, Lear mocks even the idea of him, a king, getting down on his knees in order to be forgiven (II.iv.152-156); he has yet to suffer through a night of storm and psychosis before realizing the importance of humility. The precursory moments leading to this understanding are when Lear simply refers to his own body: "Oh me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!" and "O sides, you are too tough! /Will you yet hold?" (ll. 119, 198-199). At this point Lear is still quite coherent, yet the rejection of his two daughters has begun to wear on him, and he is recognizing the limitations of his body. He even says to Goneril, "I am ashamed /That thou hast power to shake my manhood" (I.iv.293-294). Lear has begun to feel quite helpless, as what has been repeatedly told to him has proved to be untrue. The daughters that proclaimed their unconditional love have both demanded that he diminish his number of followers or remain unwelcome to their homes; it is only natural that Lear would subsequently begin to question other voices of his court. Once he has been sent away by both of his daughters, Lear realizes he is not the powerful dragon he once considered himself to be, and what others promised to be true: "Here I stand…A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man" (III.ii.19-20). He is slowly coming to see the truth of his bodily self, unfortunately at great cost. Before he spirals into intense madness, Lear recognizes his current vulnerability as a lesson, saying,   

At this point Lear is somewhat competent; he is still speaking eloquently and within Shakespeare's meter of the upper class. And even when Lear seems fully lost, he is still able to mix reason with his insane thoughts. After making the above statement, Lear looks on the disguised Edgar who is dressed in rags and says, "Unaccommodated /man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal, as thou art" and immediately attempts to tear off his clothing (ll. 105-108). He is trying to allow his body to experience the same wretchedness as Edgar by stripping and making himself bare to the elements of the storm. Lear wants to come to that understanding that he believes experiencing the life of the wretched will induce; however, it is not until he reaches the worst moments of his insanity that Lear will have this realization.

               Lear reaches the thick of his madness just before Cordelia's men come to retrieve him. It is during one of his most deranged speeches that Lear describes his epiphany within the storm of insanity and rain, which Bennett discusses, saying, "it marks the beginning of his recognition of his true place in the world—his human frailty" (Bennett 146). In this speech, Lear recounts his change through this mental and physical tempest:

In going from opulence to bare wretchedness, Lear has finally come to the basic realization that his will is not always enough—there is a greater power than himself. He also understands that the unquestioning nature of his court sheltered him from this fact. They would flatter him into thinking that he was wise beyond his years and agree with his opinions unconditionally: "They told me I was everything! 'Tis a /lie. I am not ague-proof" (ll. 96-100, 104-105). It is only through this final resignation that Lear comprehends himself for the first time as a man above all other things. "He is brought to seek the barest necessities of food, shelter, and rest, so that he may learn his own limitations" (Bennett 152). It is only after this ordeal that Lear is emotionally ready to ask for Cordelia's forgiveness. When they are finally reunited, Lear apologizes not in a covert way, claiming that he would drink poison if she asked him to (Shakespeare IV.viii.72-76). He even kneels with Cordelia before becoming more lucid, thus mimicking the very motion he mocked earlier in the play (ll. 60). Lear finally explicitly apologizes to Cordelia, while stating that he is "old and foolish" (ll. 88-90), and then later promises to kneel and ask for forgiveness (V.iii.10-11). It is only through his terrible trauma of madness that Lear could kneel before anyone, much less his banished daughter. Robert B. Heilman in 'Twere Best not Know Myself: Othello, Lear, Macbeth states it best: "Lear needs a civil war, a terrible storm, and madness before he can shift from abuse of villains to acknowledgement that it is he who needs forgiveness" (Heilman 97). Unfortunately for Lear and all those involved, Heilman's statement is absolutely true, and everyone pays the price for the unconditional nature of Lear's supportive court because one person finally dissents and tells him a truth.

               In the case of Lady Macbeth, her screen from truth is self-imposed throughout the tragedies of Macbeth. The most harmful fact concerning her active ignorance of her responsibility in the deaths of men is that she is almost completely accountable for their demise—making her psychosis all the more debilitating. Just as Lear demanded exceptional words from daughters, so too does Lady Macbeth request overly ambitious actions of Macbeth. Although it can be argued that Macbeth initially had the idea of killing Duncan before even discussing it with his wife, as he jumps when the witches hail him as king (Shakespeare I.iii.51-52), it is the influence of Lady Macbeth that convinces him. When she learns of the bizarre moment that he was hailed as king, Lady Macbeth immediately rejoices and calls upon spirits to give her the gall to kill Duncan and make her husband king (I.v.37-53). Their reactions could not be more different; she has the definite drive and ambition for the murder, he immediate fear and confusion. Her incredible sureness of this path to royalty drives the whole of their interaction in Act I, Scene vii, as Lady Macbeth almost shames Macbeth into murdering Duncan. Even in the last moments before killing the king, Macbeth exhibits a dread and uncertainty in his murderous and treasonous act (II.ii.34-65). Yet Lady Macbeth is, in actuality, demanding too much from both herself and her husband. She tells Macbeth:

and yet she discusses in private her inability to kill the slumbering Duncan. She claims she would have been able to murder him herself "Had he not resembled /My father as he slept" (II.i.12-13). It is unreasonable to believe that this woman is capable of killing her own child as it smiles at her, but not a man who merely resembles her father and is also unconscious. When Macbeth returns to their chamber after killing Duncan, he falls apart emotionally because of his actions. Lady Macbeth tries to convince him to forget the moment, and chides him for not completing his task of wiping the blood on the king's servants, saying, "The sleeping and the dead /Are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood /That fears a painted devil" (II.ii.56-58). Just a scene earlier she could not kill the sleeping Duncan—who resembled her father—despite the fact she apparently considers the sleeping nothing more than a "picture." Lady Macbeth's attempts to talk her way out of natural thoughts and emotions are driven by her belief that such human qualities can be extirpated from the mind.

               Lady Macbeth's famous soliloquy just after learning of Macbeth's new title of "Thane of Cawdor" begins her attempt to de-humanize or de-conscience herself. Though her language is mostly focused on "unsexing" the body, Lady Macbeth calls upon spirits to take her body's commonalities and replace them with a lack of conscience—apparently needed in order to kill the men that block the path to her husband's kingship (I.v.37-53). Lady Macbeth summons these spirits to fill her with cruelty, thicken her blood, take her "woman's breasts" and replace milk with gall; she is inducing a metamorphosis—sacrificing her body—in order to be rid of her conscience. Paul H. Kocher in Lady Macbeth and the Doctor notes the soliloquy, saying, "[Lady Macbeth] believes that a physical substance can veto one of the highest spiritual agents in the soul" and "her soliloquy stresses body at expense of soul" (Kocher 348). She believes that her soul and moral sense can truly be expunged with this speech of strong will and the exchange of her natural body. By the time she lays the daggers beside Duncan, the reader/audience member knows that she has been unsuccessful in such a transmutation; she was unable to kill Duncan in his sleep despite her apparent change. "She wills melancholia as an escape from conscience" (348), yet Lady Macbeth escapes from nothing, and the terrible truth of her actions finally drives her to madness.

               During the unfortunate banquet scene in which Macbeth believes he is seeing Banquo's ghost just after having him killed, we once again witness the usual exchange between Lady Macbeth and her husband. She is calm and mindful, while Macbeth is in a fit of terror and confusion (Shakespeare III.iv). This is the last time we see Lady Macbeth until Act V, Scene i. When we finally come to see her, we find that her attempts to avert her eyes from the truth and ignore her conscience were at the expense of her mind. One of her gentlewomen and a doctor witness her psychosis, along with the reader/audience, as she relives the evening that Macbeth murdered Duncan and obsesses over an imagined stain of blood on her hand (V.i). Her gentlewoman says that such speeches and habits are "an accustomed action with her" (V.i.28). As she has been absent from the play for a great deal of time, and the gentlewoman claims she has been performing this moment habitually, it is very likely that she has been having these reenacting fits for at least the majority of her absence. Karin S. Coddon in "Unreal Mockery": Unreason and the Problem of Spectacle in Macbeth comments on Lady Macbeth's perpetual psychotic moment, saying that she "speaks as one confined to a script, for virtually everything she says has a concrete referent to a prior event" (Coddon 498). Lady Macbeth has set herself in a cruel cycle specifically because she continually blinded herself from her horrible actions, and now she tragically mimics the evening over and over. It is possible that her mind is forcing her to return to that moment in order to reveal something to her so she can finally recover, but instead she simply mumbles the words and retires before she relives it again. The doctor, while watching Lady Macbeth's perpetual moment, says, "Unnatural deeds /Do breed unnatural troubles" (V.i.70-71), which is more true than the doctor realizes. Lady Macbeth has been calling for everything unnatural—the change of her body, the ability to kill innocents, ignoring the trauma of murder, et cetera. Because of her deviant demands and subsequent state bred from these demands, the doctor believes "More needs she the divine than the physician" (ll. 73). She is beyond the help of those that heal the body, and must now try to mend her rejected soul. Although Lady Macbeth believed that she had the ability to sacrifice one for the other, she finds that they are very interconnected. Her harmed soul forces her body to reenact that horrible moment, to see an un-washable stain, and eventually leads her to a quiet death (ll. 50-52, V.v.16). Heilman describes Lady Macbeth as an "assured, plunging personality that can fight off…all assaults of a saving self-knowledge" (Heilman 94). Had she not so violently forced herself to act against her moral self and recognizing the truth of her actions, Lady Macbeth may very well had come to the self-realizations that Lear experienced on the heath.

               Lady Macbeth and King Lear appear to go through a similar cycle at the end of their lives: both experience strenuous trials that induce madness, and die shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, the causes and outcomes of their madness are quite different. While Lear was led astray by his court because of his power, Lady Macbeth tried to blind herself in order to gain power. She so desperately wanted the crown that she attempted to sacrifice not only the lives of others, but her own body and comprehension of reality in order to attain it. Lear was already a man of great power and, because of his designation, was misled for the entirety of his life until the moment the play begins. When Lear begins to understand that he is fallible and human, he falls into insanity until he accepts his humanity and is able to die aware of this truth. Because it is revealed to Lear that others have lied to him during his lifetime, he can come to comprehend himself despite it. Lady Macbeth is the only person who is attempting to hide the weight of her wrongful actions, and it leads to her inescapable cycle. Because she attempts to reject this self-awareness, she can learn nothing. Her mind, body and soul seem to punish her by forcing her to re-enact the guilty moment over and over with irrational babblings uttered intermittently in her condemning speech. Each were deceived concerning self and truth, but one was betrayed by an external force, and the other from within.