Sleep, darling
Pg. 75 / Act V / Scene 1
Lady Macbeth: Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One: two: why, then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow’r to accompt? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Doctor: Do you mark that?
Lady Macbeth: The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that! You mar all with this starting.
I decided to write my blog about Lady Macbeth’s sleep walking/talking scene. I thought this part in the play was particularly interesting because it was the first time that the readers were given insight into Lady Macbeth’s conscience–something I was wondering even existed considering her cold, heartless ways. Upon reading this excerpt, it became clear to me that the evil deeds she and her husband had committed were beginning to plague her mind. When she exclaimed, “out, damned spot,” I took this two ways: first of all, she could be referring to the blood that might have stained something, because later in the same line she remarks about the old man having “so much blood in him.” Secondly, Lady Macbeth could be referring to the spot as the terrible memory of her actions and she’s demanding them to escape her mind. What is your take on this statement?
Next, we all know that our dreams aren’t exactly in chronological order or always make sense; so, do you think this is why Lady Macbeth’s statements seemed random or sporadic or do you think there is logic to her statements? For example, Lady Macbeth jumps from, “then tis time to do’t,” to “hell is murky,” then “fie, my lord, fie!” Furthermore, her remark about the soldier made me think of the three witches’ first apparition, the Armed Head. Does she sense Macduff as a threat? This makes me wonder if the witches tried to meddle with Lady Macbeth’s thoughts and not just Macbeth.
Her second quote about her hands never being clean conveys a doomed tone. Then it is followed by “no more o’ that” repeated which now looking back could foreshadow her suicide. She appears to be completely fed up with everything going on and is maybe, then, contemplating ending her life. What is your take on this part blogger?
I believe that Lady Macbeth’s death was a result of the torture her conscience had on her. In the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth had the upper hand over her husband’s actions and pressured him to kill the King. Then, as Macbeth becomes more deranged, his wife seems to become less and less powerful. What does this suggest to you about the power theme of the story? It appears to shift from Lady Macbeth to Macbeth. Then, it seems to me like Lady Macbeth’s guilty conscience began as small regretful thoughts, and then led to nightmares, then to sleep walking and finally she killed herself. Could Shakespeare be suggesting that women are weaker in the long run?
Shakespeare was obviously more knowledgeable than I thought! He had to have known about dreams and their affect on people. We may take this information for granted but back in his time, I doubt that there were people who studied dreams; it seems like he was touching on information about the human psyche. Interesting! What more can you add to this half-thought?
Word Count: 490
Hey, Paige. I’d like to tell you first of all that I feel like I should be commenting on someone else’s blog (Laura Jane’s), but, as hers has been taken already, I’ll just reply to yours for now, and try hers again next time.
So, you chose the dream scene, did you? I feel like that’s one of the most important in the whole play. (I won’t call it THE most important, as I’m hardly qualified to make that judgment.)
Throughout Macbeth, blood seems to be a symbol of the mark sin makes upon the characters – their guilt. In this case, it’s the invisible, psychological representation of the physical blood Lady Macbeth had on her hands when she indirectly caused the death of two grooms by framing them for murder. She seems to be hallucinating, acting crazed because, no matter what she does, she can’t get the blood (the remembrance of her crimes) off of her hands, or out of her mind. Of course, she has washed the physical blood off of her hands scenes ago, but she can’t forget its presence.
When she says the bit about the soldier, I don’t think that she was making any hidden reference to the “armed head,” but rather, she was speaking to Macbeth in her dream. She wanted him to kill the king, to be more ambitious. “Are you not a man?” she asks. “A soldier, and afeared?” She is questioning his manliness to get him to do what she wants – an echo of the way she manipulates him throughout the play. But no, I certainly wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the witches were also messing with her mind. Of course, there is the “unsex me” bit, so Lady Macbeth can’t have been completely unfamiliar with the dark arts.
Oh, yeah, I definitely agree that, if she did indeed kill herself, it was because of the psychological toll her indirect murders took on her. She thought she could be inhuman enough that she wouldn’t be bothered, but she was wrong. The thought of the innocent blood she had spilled must have been eating away at her from the beginning. I don’t know if Shakespeare was necessarily claiming women to be the weaker of the two sexes, unless of course, he considers you strong for failing to suffer after murdering an innocent man. He may have been saying that women were more emotional than men, and more impulsive, but while he may have believed women to be weaker, I don’t think that he was attempting to say it through Lady Macbeth’s sleep-walking episode.
Anyway, good show Paige! You chose a very interesting scene, and I hope we get to discuss this topic as a class later.
- Rachel
Word Count: 458