The guilt throughout the play shows that guilt, along with ambition, can destroy you. Without this internal sense of guilt neither Lady MacBeth nor MacBeth would have died as they did. Macbeth would remain a tyrant and continue to kill anyone who stood in his way. Lady MacBeth would not have ended her life as she did in the play. One way this is symbolized is how they both continually try to wash their hands to rid themselves of this sin. Lady MacBeth walks in her sleep and tries to rinse the blood from her hands. In MacBeth, Macbeth shows his guilt immediately after killing Duncan by saying, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No, this hand of mine will prefer / The countless incarnate seas, / Making the green one red" (2.2.57-60). This is him saying that not even all the water in the oceans could wash his hands of this horrible sin. Killing Duncan causes a ripple effect of guilt that creates that atmosphere that things are not as they are