Scene Summary
Lady Macbeth sits in her chamber awaiting her husband’s return, talking to herself about her drugging Duncan’s servants so that they have no memory of what will occur during the night. Frightened by an owl’s shriek, she sees Macbeth clutching two bloody daggers. She questions Macbeth if he has killed Duncan and he confirms the king is dead.
Macbeth then questions her about whether she had heard anything or if anyone has been alerted of the murder, specifically Duncan’s sons. Macbeth tells his wife how the servants spoke of murder in their sleep before briefly waking and not seeing anything, though Macbeth was compelled to answer them when they began to speak a prayer. Lady Macbeth tells her husband not to think of them anymore as it will drive them both mad. Macbeth claims to have heard a voice tell him “sleep no more; Macbeth does murder sleep... Macbeth shall sleep no more.”
Lady Macbeth chastises Macbeth, telling him to be braver and to stop thinking such cowardly thoughts while also instructing him to clean his hands of Duncan’s blood. Realising her husband has still has the murder weapons clutched in his hand, she tells him to return them to the room, but Macbeth refuses, admitting he is afraid to witness again what he has done. Frustrated, Lady Macbeth takes the daggers from Macbeth, and angrily tells him that the sleeping and the dead are the same and nothing to be feared before leaving the room. After she leaves a mysterious knocking begins around the room, as a frightened Macbeth questions if he can ever wash the blood off his hands even if he were to use the ocean. Lady Macbeth returns with bloody hands herself, hearing the knocking and ordering that they both return to their bed chamber in order to wash the blood off their hands and symbolically cleanse themselves of the evil deed they have committed. She tells Macbeth not to be lost in his dark thoughts. Agreeing, Macbeth takes one last moment to reflect, remarking “to know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself.”
Scene Analysis
As with Macbeth’s first encounter with the witches, this scene of the play is amongst its most important. All throughout the first act and the beginning of the second, Duncan’s death has either been planned or foreshadowed. Great tension has been building up to this point, with Macbeth struggling with the battle between his guilt and ambition and Lady Macbeth darkly weaving the plot. So when the moment finally occurs, in true Shakespearean fashion, the audience never sees it! Much like many of Shakespeare’s tragedies, certain important events are left to the audience’s imagination, and are only described unreliably by the characters, leaving the audience to interpret what little information is available to them. To use another one of Shakespeare’s tragedies as an example, in Hamlet, the death of King Hamlet is never portrayed, only mentioned by the characters in the world, with his supposed ghost being the only physical proof the audience ever witnesses of the deed. Incredibly similar is Macbeth entering the room with his two bloody daggers in this scene. Though less ambiguous than the ghost in Hamlet, there is still the same air of mystery present for surrounding Macbeth’s murder of his king. Questions arise from this ambiguity. Did Macbeth hesitate? What emotions did he display during the act? Did Duncan awaken to see Macbeth kill him? All questions would lend greatly to an interpretation of Macbeth’s character if answered, but the text does not grant its audience the luxury. What is known about the act however are two things; it did something to Macbeth’s sanity and it was brutally violent.
Covered in blood and muttering vague and dark words, apart from his first and last soliloquies this is the most vulnerable Macbeth has been. It is clear he is shocked at the deed he has committed, and is potentially traumatised by the murder of his king and relative. He is depicted in a state of paranoia, thinking he heard the voices of Duncan’s servants as he committed the murder and forgetting to leave the daggers at the scene, putting him and his wife at great risk. Though it can be understood that Macbeth’s guilt is one driven by his shame, with his line “I am to think what I have done... look on’t again, I dare not” acting as strong evidence, his behaviour throughout this scene is more fitting of a man more afraid to be caught more than anything else.
Contextually, the murder Macbeth committed in this scene would have been the amongst the greatest crimes of not only Shakespeare’s time but the real Macbeth’s too. Though the real King Macbeth killed Duncan as well, it was on the field of battle and perceived as simply war. The plays version however was done deceitfully and as affront to God himself, for not only was killing one’s family looked down upon, but the monarchy have always viewed their position as kings and queens as a holy right. By killing Duncan, Macbeth has committed a crime against God himself, and the consequences of such an action are dire. The fear Macbeth feels at such a revelation is displayed when telling his wife how he almost finished the prayer of Duncan’s sleep-talking servants, almost exposing himself as Duncan’s murderer and ruining his plans of ascension. As with many of the ideas presented by the play, Shakespeare does not make it clear if Macbeth is truly guilty of the murder or simply just afraid of being caught.
Further more, once again, it is Lady Macbeth who takes upon the role expected of a man, guarding her emotions and doing what is necessary to be done for the success of their plan. Though clearly still villainous, it is clear at this point that Shakespeare has designated Lady Macbeth as a strong and capable character, independent in her actions, and contrary to the gender standards of his time. It is also Lady Macbeth who introduces one of the many motifs found throughout the play: blood and its association with guilt and eventually insanity. By the end of the scene, her and her husband’s hands are covered in the blood of Duncan, physically and metaphorically revealing their deed. Macbeth wonders if he can ever wash off the blood and by extension the murder he has committed, going so far to say that even the ocean itself cannot wash away his crime when he declares “with all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood? No... it will make the green turn red.” Clearly feeling something associated with guilt, Macbeth appears in stark contrast to his wife, who states a “little water clears us of this deed” in an obvious biblical allusion to Pontius Pilate washing his hands after sentencing Christ to death. Shakespeare, however, cleverly uses this quote by Lady Macbeth and the guilt-ridden religious symbolism it references, and imbues it with dramatic irony, as Lady Macbeth’s madness towards the end of the play manifests itself with her paranoid desire to clean her hands of the phantom blood that only she can see.
