Act Two
Identifying Devices
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Act 2, Scene 1
References to the supernatural, darkness, and evil
forces can be found in this scene (dramatic purpose).
1. How much of this uneasiness is in
the minds of the characters, and
how much is due to the
intervention of supernatural
or “unnatural” forces?
2. Are the witches abroad again,
making mischief, or are Banquo
and Macbeth struggling with
their own internal demons?
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Act 2, Scene 1
“The moon is down…” (lines 1–5)
• Through Banquo and Fleance, we are told right
away how black a night it is, with no moon and few
stars shining. (Shakespeare had to rely on language
to create imagery and tell the audience how dark it
was.)
• Is there another purpose? Look back to Act 1, Scene
4, and notice the imagery Macbeth uses in his aside
(lines 48–53). What connection can you see and what
does it suggest is about to happen?
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Act 2, Scene 1
“Merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursed
thoughts…” (lines 7–9)
• Darkness and sleeplessness
are motifs that run
throughout the play.
• Banquo also personifies merciful powers in lines 7-9
(apostrophe - the act of addressing some abstraction
or personification that is not physically present).
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Act 2, Scene 2
• Nocturnal animals dominate Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth’s imaginations as metaphors:
for example, the owl (line 3) and crickets (line 15).
“I think not of them” (line 21)
• Banquo admits he’s had bad dreams
about the witches, but Macbeth
insists that he hasn’t been thinking
about them at all—which we
know is a lie (dramatic irony).
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Act 2, Scene 1
• Try reading Macbeth’s soliloquy (lines 33–64) out
loud. Don’t worry about understanding every single
word to start with, but notice how often he refers to
blood (visual imagery), violence,
and the supernatural. Try
emphasizing those words as
you read.
• Also see the allusion to
the Greek goddess
Hecate in line 52.
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Act 2, Scene 1
• An allusion to a Roman tyrant appears in line 55:
“With Tarquin’s ravishing strides”
“My hands are of your colour but I shame /
to wear a heart so white ” (lines 68-69)
• Lady Macbeth is talking to Macbeth;
white here symbolizes a colourless
or bloodless heart.
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Act 2, Scene 2
• “It was the owl (symbolism) that shriek’d,
the fatal bellman (metaphor) / Which gives
the stern’st good-night” (lines 3-4)
“Methought I heard a
voice cry, ‘Sleep no
more’...” (lines 38–46)
• The motif of sleeplessness
re-emerges.
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Act 2, Scene 2
• “Sleep that knits up (personification) the
ravell’d sleeve of care” (line 40).
• Repetition can also
be seen in the several
references to knocking
which build suspense
or tension, beginning
at line 61.
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Act 2, Scene 2
• He talks about his hand, not
himself, as the murderer
(metonymy) in lines 58-61.
• Sleep becomes “great
nature’s second [main] course”
to the sleep-deprived Macbeth (metaphor).
• Macbeth’s hand is so bloody it will “incarnadine”
the oceans (hyperbole), foreshadowing his
future metaphor of wading across an ocean of
blood (line 62).
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Act 2, Scene 2
“A little water clears us of this deed.” (line 70)
• Make note of this line: It will prove to be one
of the most ironic lines in the play.
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Act 2, Scene 3
• In this scene, news gets out that Duncan
is dead. But only we, and the murderers
themselves, know for sure who
did the deed (dramatic irony).
• Watch how the Macbeths try to
put on a show to deflect attention
from their own guilt.
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Act 2, Scene 3
The Discovery of the Murder (lines 38–142)
“The night has been unruly…” (lines 49–56)
• To the Elizabethans, killing the king was the equivalent of
killing God’s representative on Earth (the Great Chain of
Being or Divine Order).
• Order in nature was directly connected to human order.
The disturbances in the weather would have been seen as
the direct result of the disruption Macbeth has caused.
• What similarities and differences can you see between
modern perspectives and the Elizabethan view?
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Act 2, Scene 3
The Porter’s Monologue – Comic Relief
• After such a heavy scene, Shakespeare lightens the mood
by introducing the drunken porter.
• Is this comic relief necessary at this point? Does it detract
from the play or give the audience a chance to relax?
• Does the porter speak some hidden truths? When he
cries, “Who’s there, i’th’name of Beelzebub?” (lines 3–4),
what is he really saying to the arriving guests?
• How is his pretense of being the porter at the gates of
Hell an ironic comment on what is about to happen?
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Act 2, Scene 3
“Approach the chamber and destroy your sight /
With a new Gorgon” (lines 68-69)
• Allusion is used as Macduff references the Gorgon
Medusa, a Greek mythological
creature with snakes for hair
who turns those who look at
her to stone.
• We also see imagery in lines
110-112 with the “murderers,
/ Steep’d in the colours of
their trade”
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Act 2, Scene 4
• Shakespeare really emphasizes imagery in this
scene. Be on the look out for more bird
imagery, clothing imagery, paradoxes, and the
use of pathetic fallacy, including when
“Duncan’s horses […] Turn’d wild in nature,
broke their stalls, flung out” (lines 14-16).
• We also see
personification in
line 7: “And yet dark
night strangles the
travelling lamp.”
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