lady macbeth 5

• keywords:

  • Somnambulism (sleep-walking), hallucinogenic madness, carcass of insanity, mentally fragmented, need for salvation.
• Lady Macbeth [enters with a taper], a taper being a candle.

  • As a [taper] provides light, this is emblematic of how Lady Macbeth is seeking light, hope, and solace in her eternal mental darkness.
• Lady Macbeth was critically described by D.J. Enright as a "sprinter in evil", unlike Macbeth, who is more a "long-distance" runner.

  • This is apparent through the complete reversal of her character throughout the play, the drive of evil is transient (semi-permanent), and she is rendered a carcass of insanity by Act 5.
• Lady Macbeth [enters with a taper], a taper being a candle.

  • Jesus was seen as the 'light' of the world, providing salvation for mankind, therefore Lady Macbeth's dependency on the light could illuminate how she is hopeful for salvation and retribution for her sins.
  • She understands that her violations of the divine right of kings and the great chain of being will mean she is eternally punished in hell, hence her clinging to the hope of her redemption.
• Lady Macbeth [enters with a taper], a taper being a candle.

  • Her need for light is the antithesis to her earlier presentation in Act 1 where she calls upon the night and wants darkness: "Come thick night".
• When performed in the Jacobean era, Lady Macbeth would have typically been played by a young boy as females weren't allowed on stage.

  • This would exacerbate (further show negatively) her fragile representation on stage.
• She concedes to a state of hallucinogenic madness that Macbeth displayed when he was poisoned with guilt, attempting to wash imaginary blood clean from her hands and exclaiming "Out, damned spot! Out I say!" which directly juxtaposes her litotes in Act 1, Scene 5 "a little water will clear us of this deed".
• "Out, damned spot!"

  • The "spot" is emblematic of the scar the murder has created on her mind.
• However "Out, damned spot!" may be interpreted in another sense by Shakespeare's contemporaries.

  • In the Jacobean period, madness was often perceived as a sign of being possessed by demons.
  • It was believed witches and demons had a "spot" on their bodies that identified them as evil.
  • This reinforces the "damned" which has connotations of hell.
• It is interesting that Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking, operating within a liminal realm between waking and sleeping, it conveys that she is trapped in her mind and could suggest the blurring of the two facets of her personality.
• At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth speaks in blank verse (iambic pentameter) which denotes characters of high status.

  • However, in Act 5, she speaks in disjointed prose.
  • Prose is usually associated with low-status, inferior characters.
• Lady Macbeth's regression from blank verse to disjointed prose shows that her guilt has infected and engulfed her mind so consequently, she has lost the status she once had.
• Lady Macbeth is the only Shakespearean character to die speaking in prose which dismisses her as insignificant.

  • Although she played an influential role in instigating the murder, she was discarded soon after and reaped no reward from it.