Unit 5: Act 2 – Murder and sleep
Assessment focus: A01, A02
Suggested number of lessons: 2-3
Resources:
Outcomes:
Resource Sheet 9(a): Order & chaos
Resource Sheet 9(b): Answer grid
Resource Sheet 10: Acting tense
 To have a sound understanding of the prime
participants in the events of Act 2 and their
contribution to the action
 To understand the contribution punctuation,
sound, and variety of line lengths make to
the dramatic effect
►Initial work
For this unit students should have read Act 2, or have a knowledge of the key events.
▲ Activity 1: Ask students to look at Resource Sheet 9(a): Order and chaos and put the
quotations into the order they are said. Students will also need to identify who is speaking.
Draw out the idea that the four scenes of this act are all very different in tone and
substance. Act 2 Scene 1 deals with Macbeth’s sounding out of Banquo, and then shifts to
his own personal battle with his conscience. Scene 2 is concerned with the claustrophobic
comings and goings of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Scene 3 involves the discovery of the
murder and its aftermath. The final scene acts almost as a chorus – a view from afar on
the events of the night before.
►Focused work
In Act 2 Scene 2 a number of key ideas from the play come together in a highly dramatic
way. It is important students get a sense of the different aspects of the writer’s craft that
are employed.
▲ Activity 2: Students work in pairs to read the scene through aloud two or three times,
until they are comfortable with the language and style. Then ask them to look at the
opening lines up to ‘A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight’ and discuss:

what they notice about the variety of sentence lengths

the use of punctuation and questions
How do these things contribute to a sense of tension within the scene?
Display Resource sheet 10: Acting tense and model how the rest of Lady Macbeth’s
speech and their first dialogue might be acted. Encourage students to take their cue from
what is in the script: Lady Macbeth’s response to sounds; her concerns that the murder
may have been unsuccessful; her reflections about Duncan looking like her father (would
this be said in an almost ‘confessional’ tone?) etc. Then elicit how the short breathless
exchange about the sounds they may or may not have heard adds to the suspense.
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▲ Activity 3: Students should now reread the rest of the scene in small groups, then
discuss:

what happens in the remainder of this scene (Macbeth refusing to go back with the
daggers etc.)

Macbeth’s state of mind. What does he keep talking about? What is the ‘chief
nourisher in life’s feast’?

Lady Macbeth’s response to his fears and concerns. Does she feel the same?

whether this scene seems to follow naturally from previous scenes between
Macbeth and his wife
Feed back the students’ responses, ensuring they are clear about the key plot
developments, as well as how their knowledge of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth has been
advanced by this scene.
 Aim High
In the scene which follows, Act 2 Scene 3, Lady Macbeth faints when Duncan’s murder is
discovered. It is convenient to believe she does this to divert attention from the difficult
questions being asked of Macbeth, but ask students what other interpretations can be put
on this act?
 Moving On
Students should make an independent study of the short, final scene of this act, looking for
the interesting parallels between the actions in nature described by Ross and the Old Man,
and the murder – the idea of a world turned upside down, in which tame horses break out
of their stable, and the ‘pathetic fallacy’ of the darkness which ‘strangles the travelling
lamp’.
 Check the web
‘Pathetic fallacy’. Look for a succinct explanation of this literary term at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathetic_fallacy
Summary of key learning
 The tone and mood of a dialogue and scene can be set as much by the punctuation,
selection of line lengths and structures, as by what is actually said.
 Act 2 Scene 2 is a pivotal scene from the first half of the play in that it seems to confirm our
views that Lady Macbeth is the prime mover in the events, and that Macbeth is still highly
ambivalent about what he has done.
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Resource Sheet 9(a):
Order and chaos
The following lines are spoken by characters at various points during Act 2. In groups of
two, identify who is speaking, and then put the quotations in the order they were said.
I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't.
O, yet I do repent me of my fury
That I did kill them.
O horror, horror, horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?
Ah, good father,
Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage. By th’ clock, 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp
A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy is it, then!
There's daggers in men's smiles; the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.
I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters.
To you they have showed some truth.
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Resource Sheet 9(b):
Order and chaos – answer sheet
Banquo:
I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters.
To you they have showed some truth.
Act 2 Scene 1
Macbeth:
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?
Act 2 Scene 1
Lady Macbeth:
I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't.
Act 2 Scene 2
Macbeth:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.
Act 2 Scene 2
Lady Macbeth:
A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy is it, then!
Act 2 Scene 2
Macduff:
O horror, horror, horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!
Act 2 Scene 3
Macbeth:
O, yet I do repent me of my fury
That I did kill them.
Act 2 Scene 3
Donalbain:
There's daggers in men's smiles; the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
Act 2 Scene 3
Ross:
Ah, good father,
Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage. By th’ clock, 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp
Act 2 Scene 4
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Resource Sheet 10:
Acting tense
Short sentences create
sharp, staccato, breathless
effect
MACBETH
[Within] Who's there? What, ho!
Moves away
from door to
chamber,
then stops in
her tracks on
‘Hark’ in
response to
imagined
noise
Could spin round – not sure
who is speaking; her words
suggest that Macbeth might
have failed
LADY MACBETH
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,
And 'tis not done. Th’ attempt and not the deed
Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't. My husband!
Enter MACBETH
Clearly hears Macbeth
entering chamber; eyes
now fixed on the door
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH
When?
LADY MACBETH
Now.
MACBETH
As I descended?
LADY MACBETH
Ay.
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