Introduction
In Literature of Christendom, the concept of conscience occupies a central place as a moral faculty bestowed by God, guiding individuals towards virtue or condemning them for sin. William Shakespeare’s Richard III and Macbeth both dramatise this dynamic through protagonists whose crimes against divine order leave them haunted. This essay compares and contrasts the ways in which conscience afflicts Richard and Macbeth, examining the timing, manifestations and consequences of their inner turmoil. It argues that while both characters are ultimately destroyed by the same moral mechanism, their differing responses to conscience reveal contrasting degrees of agency and self-awareness within a Christian moral framework.
The Manifestations of Conscience in Richard III
Richard Gloucester’s conscience emerges most powerfully at the play’s climax rather than during his ascent. Throughout the earlier acts he displays a calculated amorality, boasting of his villainy with little apparent inner conflict. However, on the eve of Bosworth, the ghosts of those he has murdered appear in succession, each invoking divine justice and urging Richmond onward. Richard awakens crying, “Have mercy, Jesu!” (Shakespeare, 2009, 5.3.182), revealing a sudden recognition of sin. This late visitation underscores the medieval and early modern belief that conscience, though suppressed, remains an indestructible divine imprint. Yet Richard quickly reasserts his familiar persona, declaring “Conscience is but a word that cowards use” (5.3.309), showing that his engagement with conscience remains superficial. The result is fatal: he enters battle unrepentant and meets his death without spiritual resolution, confirming the Christian tenet that unacknowledged sin leads to perdition.
The Manifestations of Conscience in Macbeth
Macbeth’s conscience operates continuously and destructively from the moment he contemplates Duncan’s murder. The dagger vision, the voice crying “Sleep no more!” and Banquo’s ghost at the banquet all represent externalised projections of an acutely active conscience. Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene further externalises this guilt, demonstrating that conscience may displace itself onto others when the principal sinner attempts to deny it. Unlike Richard, Macbeth repeatedly articulates his moral awareness: he knows Duncan is “meek” and his own ambition “vaulting” (Shakespeare, 2015, 1.7.16–27). His persistent dialogue with conscience therefore erodes his sanity and martial effectiveness, culminating in despairing nihilism. The Christian dramaturgy here suggests that a conscience continually resisted produces progressive self-destruction rather than sudden reckoning.
Comparative Effects on Character and Action
Both plays illustrate how conscience undermines the tyrant’s capacity to rule. Richard, once a master rhetorician, loses rhetorical control after the dream and can offer his soldiers only denigration rather than inspiration. Macbeth, previously a courageous soldier, becomes indecisive and tyrannical, alienating allies through paranoia. In each case conscience functions as an agent of divine retribution, ensuring that the unnatural seizure of the crown destabilises the body politic as well as the individual soul. The shared trajectory supports the view, common in Christendom literature, that political crimes are simultaneously spiritual offences whose consequences are both internal and communal.
Contrasting Responses and Degrees of Doom
The principal contrast lies in the timing and reflexivity of their encounters with conscience. Richard experiences conscience as an external, almost liturgical judgement delivered by the dead; his response is brief terror followed by defiant rejection. Macbeth, by contrast, internalises conscience at every stage, transforming it into psychological torment that accelerates his fall. Consequently, Macbeth’s doom appears more complete: he loses not only his life but his very sense of meaning. Richard dies maintaining a coherent, if wicked, self-conception. This distinction suggests that the gradual, introspective action of conscience, as seen in Macbeth, produces a deeper existential ruin than the singular, supernatural confrontation granted to Richard.
Conclusion
Shakespeare presents conscience as an inescapable instrument of Christian morality that dooms both Richard and Macbeth, yet the plays diverge in the manner of that doom. Richard’s belated and resisted confrontation leaves him defiant to the last, whereas Macbeth’s prolonged internal struggle dismantles his identity entirely. The comparison illuminates the broader Christendom theme that suppression of conscience, whether momentary or sustained, ultimately severs the sinner from both divine grace and political stability. These portrayals continue to remind readers that moral order, once violated, reasserts itself through the very faculty designed to uphold it.
References
- Shakespeare, W. (2009) Richard III. Edited by James R. Siemon. London: Arden Shakespeare.
- Shakespeare, W. (2015) Macbeth. Edited by Sandra Clark and James Mason. London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare.
