Monday, October 29, 2007

II:II (Breakdown)




The scene opens with a Lady Macbeth who is a little bit drunk ('That which had made me drunk hath made me bold') which already gives a feeling that something has already happened. Let's remember that the end of Act 2 Scene 1 presented us a Macbeth ready to go and commit the crime. She informs us that her husband is performing the deed at that very moment ('He is about it') what shows the audience/reader that the crime will not be seen on stage, probably giving the scene more dramatic tension since we do not know how things are developing. She also gives information about how well she prepared the scene by getting the servants drunk ('I have drugg'd their possets').


At one point Lady Macbeth hears her husband speak from within the room and suddenly she starts to think that he did not succeed and we can sense a tone of anger in her words ('Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't').


Macbeth enters the room with his hands full of blood. At this sight a note of relief and pride appears in Lady Macbeth's words. She greets him with a 'my husband'. He has now proved to her that he is the 'man' she doubted him to be in Act 1, Scene 7.


Then Macbeth shows regret of that which he has done ('This is a sorry sight') and they have a conversation where he explains that this deed will stay with him ('Macbeth shall sleep no more!'). Lady Macbeth tries to calm him down ('These deeds must not be thought... it will make us mad') and urges him to return the daggers to the room. Macbeth refuses to go ('i am afraid to think what I have done') so she returns them herself. This shows again how the character of Lady Macbeth regains power in the relationship and it is her who handles the situation. ('Go, get some water, and wash this filthy witness from your hand').


Guilt has a very different face on these two characters. Macbeth's own is expressed in line 60: 'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous sea incarnadine', whilst the lack of Lady Macbeth's guilt appears obvious in line 67: ('A little water clears us of this deed').


The scene finishes with macbeth's wish that King Duncan was still alive and he had not comitted the crime. ('Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!')

No comments: