Summary

• Lady Macbeth develops a sleepwalking problem

• Her waiting gentlewoman reports the problem while she reveals secrets as she sleep talks

• Doctor expresses that there is no cure and he has not seen such a thing before

Quotes

‘Since his majesty went into the field,’ - Gentlewoman

• Implies that Macbeth has abandoned the castle for battle

• Shakespeare presents as lonely and isolated here - suffering for her crimes

‘great perturbation in nature’ - Doctor

• Key motif of sleep

• Lady Macbeth is is behaving unnaturally due to the unnatural act she committed against Duncan

• ‘perturbation’ - disturbance in nature

‘She has light by her continually’ - Gentlewoman

• Lady Macbeth is terrified of the dark - contrasting Act 1, Scene 5, where she asked for darkness (e.g: ‘Come thick night’)

• Juxtaposition reveals her change in character

Doctor:
You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman:
Ay, but their sense is shut.

• Antithetical parallelism shows the contrast between action in reality and action in dream-state

• Creates tension - things are slightly wrong

‘Yet here's a spot.’ - Lady Macbeth

• Short statement creates suspense and shows that Lady Macbeth is tense/stressed

• She is rubbing blood off her hands - metaphor for her guilt which won’t go away

• Links back to Act 2, Scene 2 where she said ‘a little water clears us of this deed’ to Macbeth

‘Out, damned spot! out, I say!’ - Lady Macbeth

• Exclamative amplifies her desperation

• She is commanding the blood to be gone - she seems to be a controlling character but her guilt and emotion is something she cannot control

‘One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't.’ - Lady Macbeth

• Reliving the night of the murder/having flashbacks

• Enumeration (‘One: two:’) relates to the ringing of the bells on the night of the murder

• Links to Act 2 Scene 1 - ‘the bell invites me’

‘Hell is murky!’ - Lady Macbeth

• ‘hell’ - connotations of religion

• She is scared of God even though she rejected the idea of him and Christian teaching of remorse

• ‘murky’ - dark and gloomy - what she had asked for previously

• Paranoid

‘The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?’ - Lady Macbeth

• Reminds the audience of the depth of Lady Macbeth’s guilt as she jumps from one sin to another

‘All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand’ - Lady Macbeth

• Arabia was the source of all perfumes in the Jacobean time period

• ‘little’ - shows the contrast between the amount of perfume she is referencing and her small hand - shows the extent of her guilt

• Hyperbole

‘Wash your hands, put on your nightgown’ - Lady Macbeth

• What she would say when ordering Macbeth around - she is acting like it is the night of the murder

• Guilt is evident here

‘What's done cannot be undone’ - Lady Macbeth

• Similar to what she said when she was advising Macbeth to forget about the past - yet ironically she is now plagued by the past herself

• Understands that she can’t do anything about it and might be entering acceptance - but feels she needs to kill herself to rid her of this guilt instead (foreshadowing her fate)

‘Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles’ - Doctor

• Lady Macbeth is troubled because of what she has done

• Links to the fact that bad things will ‘return to plague the inventor’