Macbeth Act II
Alexandra Gillespie, Kara McGee, Andrew Perricone,
Victoria Price, and Kalev Rudolph
I
Scene I:
Banquo and Fleance after midnight remark of bad dreams and "cursed
thoughts"
Macbeth enters, brief talk of weird sisters and Macbeth says he has not
thought of them
Banquo and Fleance exit, Macbeth hallucinates about a dagger, and
decides it is just his mind playing tricks
He remarks about how dark the night is
Signal bell is rung and Macbeth goes to to do the deed
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I
Foreshadowing - Banquo suspects something is wrong (2.1.7-11)
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose.
I
Banquo subtly expresses his suspicion by praising a clear conscience. (2.1.3277)
MACBETH
If you shall cleave to my consent, when ’tis,
It shall make honor for you.
BANQUO
So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,
I shall be counselled.
Macbeth's Dagger Soliloquy
Scene 2, Lines 42-73
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee!
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
- Is this dagger real, or is it a figment
of my imagination?
-Macbeth's uncertainty/anxiety begins
to tamper with his sanity.
-this "fatal vision" taunts him of his
duty.
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
fevered - His mind is weakening, yet
the dagger seems as real as the one he
is about to use.
Macbeth's Dagger Soliloquy
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' other senses,
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing.
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep.
-This dagger leads him to murder
as his own sword does.
-Either my senses have distorted
my eyesight, or it is the only sense
I can trust.
-wooden handle
-blood motif
-The murder has brought this
image to his imagination
-The dark of night will bring evil
dreams that deceive Duncan's safe
sleep.
- also a reference to
Mac's "dreams" of taking the
crown.
Macbeth's Dagger Soliloquy
Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
-Allusion to a goddess of magic
who performed human sacrifices.
-summoned to action
Whose howl 's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
-Allusion to the Rape of Lucrece
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout
And take the present horror from the time,
-Let me proceed with stealth so I
am not caught in the act
-even if I escape punishment
now, I may be punished in the
next life.
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
-The more I think of this, the
more doubtful I become.
Macbeth's Dagger Soliloquy
[A bell rings.]
I go, and it is done. The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.
-RRRRIIINNNGG!
-The bell brings him back from
this trance and dispels his doubt.
-"Don't wake from the sound,
Duncan, because it signals your
death."
-ends with a couplet
II
Scene II:
Lady Macbeth imagines Duncan's murder
Macbeth enters covered in blood, remarking he heard the chamberlains
praying before sleep and couldn't say "Amen"
Lady Macbeth notices the daggers, and plants them herself
Macbeth hears a strange knocking and begins to get highly upset
Lady Macbeth returns and says they must return to their chamber to wash
themselves, and that all will be well
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II
• ¨Scene begins with Lady Macbeth waiting for
Macbeth
o But it’s her plan
• ¨“Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had
done’t”(2.2.16-17)
o Rehumanization of Lady Macbeth
II
• ¨Macbeth: “I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear
a noise?” (2.2.19-20)
o Anticlimactic
• ¨Macbeth’s inability to pray
o “One cried ‘God Bless Us!’ and ‘Amen’ the other, / As
they had seen me with these hangman’s hands. / Listening
their fear, I could not say ‘Amen,’ / When they did say
‘God bless us!’” (2.2.38-42)
o “But wherefore could I not pronounce ‘Amen’? / I had
most need of a blessing, and ‘Amen’ / Stuck in my throat”
(2.2.44-46”)
II
• ¨Lady Macbeth: “These deeds must not be thought /
After these ways; so, it will make us mad” (2.2.4748).
o foreshadowing
• ¨The use of sleep
o Macbeth: “Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
/ Macbeth doth murder sleep’—the innocent sleep, / Sleep
that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care, / The death of
each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, / balm of hurt
minds…” (2.2.49-53).
II
• ¨Macbeth still humanized, visibly upset over the
murder
o “I’ll go no more: / I am afraid to think what I have done; /
Look on’t again I dare not” (2.2.66-68).
• ¨Lady M more attacks on manliness
o “You do unbend your noble strength, to think / So
brainsickly of things” (2.2.60-61).
o “Infirm of purpose! / Give me the daggers. The sleeping
and the dead / Are but as pictures: ‘tis the eye of
childhood / That fears a painted devil” (2.2.69-72).
Blood Motif
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¨Lady
Macbeth: “If [Duncan] do bleed, / I’ll gild the
faces of the grooms withal, / For it must seem their guilt”
(2.2.72-74).
¨Macbeth: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this
blood / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will
rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the
green one red” (2.2.78-81).
¨Lady Macbeth: “My hands are of your colour, but I
shame / To wear a heart so white” (2.2.82-83).
o Another manliness attack
¨Lady
Macbeth: “A little water clears us of this deed”
(2.2.85).
Blood
• Contrasting mental states
• Persistent knocking throughout the scene which we
later learn is Macduff
• Macbeth: “To know my deed, ‘twere best not know
myself” (2.2.91)
III
Scene III:
The drunken porter enters to answer the knocking, serving as comic relief
and juxtaposing the rising tension of the previous two scenes.
Macduff and Lennox are revealed as the source of the knocking and
become increasingly frustrated with the porter as he rambles on about the
effects of drinking
Macbeth enters and he and Macduff have a brief conversation about the
King, Macbeth speaking in only short sentences, revealing his inner
turmoil
Macduff asks to see the king and leaves Macbeth and Lennox alone,
Lennox goes on about the horrible, almost unnatural, storm that
accompanied them that night
Macduff returns after finding the body, and Lennox and Macbeth go to see
The entire court gathers, the daggers are found on the bodies of the
chamberlains, Malcom and Donalbain flee and Lady Macbeth faints
(seemingly to protect Macbeth from Macduff's prying)
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IV
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Ross and an Old man talk of the strange supernatural occurrences that
have begun happening since the death
o The darkness during daytime
o Owl kills a falcon
o Cannibal Horses
Macduff joins the two men, musing that is seems the chamberlains are to
blame for Duncan's death and they were most likely bribed into doing the
job and that the most probable suspects are his two sons who have fled