Lady Macbeth

• "Out, damned spot!"

  
  

  - Lady Macbeth's guilt is so great that she sees the blood on her hands as an actual stain.

  • Lady Macbeth hallucinates blood on her hands before she dies
  • Macbeth also hallucinates a dagger
  • Both are guilty and insane from paranoia
• "doubt full joy" "restless joy"


  oxymoron to show Macbeth and Lady Macbeth mixed emotions after they get what the want but now feel uneasy and guilty
• "scorpions in my mind" "the bat has flown"


  animal imagery

  sets an unsettling tone as these animals remind the audience of evil and emphasis Macbeths feelings of insecurity and Paranoia
• Guilt== rejecting femininity

  Guilt and regret are presented as obstacles to following ambition.
• Guilt== rejecting femininity


  Guilt and regret are presented as obstacles to following ambition.
• Guilt and Regret

  These two feelings are linked to femininity and thus Lady

  Macbeth tries to rid herself of her conscience when she calls upon "spirits" to "unsex" her.
• She demands that they: "Stop up th'access and passage to remorse / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between /Th'effect and it," (1.5).


  This indicates that she is capable of feeling guilt, but wants to repress these feelings because she views them as weaknesses.

  • The only way to overcome guilt is to not feel it, as Shakespeare implies guilt is too powerful to ignore.
• "Stop up th'access and passage to remorse / That no

  compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between / Th'effect and it," (1.5).


  This quote showcases Lady Macbeth's ruthless ambition and her willingness to silence her conscience in order to achieve her goals, setting the stage for the tragic events that unfold in the play.
• ''access and passage to remorse'' (1.5)


  
  

  • Metaphor: "Access and passage to remorse" metaphorically refers to lady Macbeth's conscience and moral compass. By "stopping up" these channels, she seeks to suppress any feelings of guilt or remorse that may arise from his actions.
• "Compunctious visitings of nature"


  • Personification
  • personifies Macbeth's conscience, portraying it as a natural force that would typically provoke feelings of remorse
  • highlights the internal struggle between Macbeth's ambition and his moral sensibilities
• "Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace"


  • Alliteration
  • adds emphasis to Macbeth's determination to prevent anything from interfering with his sinister intentions.
• "fell purpose" (evil intention) and "peace"

  • Contrast
  • Juxtaposition
  • suggests the dichotomy within Macbeth's psyche, torn between his ambition and his inner turmoil
• lady Macbeth: 'Stop up th'access and passage to remorse / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between / Th'effect and it'
• The quote reveals lady Macbeth's conscious decision to suppress any feelings of guilt or remorse that may hinder her pursuit of power. She seeks to maintain a clear path toward his goals without moral interference.
• It highlights the internal conflict between Macbeth's ambition and his sense of morality, foreshadowing the moral degradation and psychological turmoil that will plague him as the play progresses.
• cost of guilt

  The cost of Lady Macbeth's guilt is shown to be endless paranoia.
• Cost of guilt: "Nought's had, all's spent / Where our desire is got without content. /'Tis safer to be

  that which we destroy / Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy," (3.2),


  • suggests she envies the dead for their peace of mind. "All's spent" illustrates how there is a cost for being guilty of a crime, and may also allude to her mental exhaustion - she is "spent".
• Cost of guilt

  • Lady Macbeth is becoming aware of the infinite cycle of violence they have got themselves into to satisfy their paranoia.
  • Shakespeare shows that sins and crimes are never rewarded, so that the perpetrators are only left with their remorse.
• Shakespeare demonstrates how guilt and regret can't be escaped.

  Lady Macbeth tells her worried husband, "What's done, is done," (3.2),
• Lady Macbeth tells her worried husband, "What's done, is done," (3.2),


  • suggesting they can't change their fate and will just have to live with the consequences.
  • Shakespeare suggests that greed and ambition can't predict the guilt that comes with making fantasies into reality.
  • The line becomes a refrain for her, as later she mutters to herself in her sleep, "What's done cannot be undone," (5.1).
• "What's done cannot be undone," (5.1).


  • The repetition makes it appear like she is trying to convince herself to let go and get the courage to face reality.
  • The change from "is done" to "cannot be undone" gives the impression that her guilt and desperation have increased.
• cost of guilt: Blood & Hallucinations

  • Blood is a symbol of guilt and death in Macbeth.
  • The Macbeth's can't escape it no matter how much they try to wash it away.
  • Hallucinations and ghosts are also symbols of guilt and death, as they point to the existence of an Afterlife and the invisible world of the supernatural.
• Blood as a motif


  • Blood is a motif used throughout the play to show how the Macbeth's react to their guilt.
  • They both react differently to the blood which reveals to the audience how differently their minds work.
• Lady Macbeth believes that the simple act of washing their hands will rid them of both the

  physical blood but also the mental guilt of their deed.


  She orders her husband, "Go get some water / And wash this filthy witness from your hand," (2.2), echoing this later, "A little water clears us of this deed," (2.2).
• "Go get some water / And wash this filthy witness from your hand," (2.2), echoing this later

  "A little water clears us of this deed," (2.2).


  • Here, "water" is a symbol of purity and life.
  • She isn't focused on what the murder says about them or the mental impact it will have, the implications of if they get caught with blood on their hands.
  • She worries that it will implicate them in the murder as a "witness", so tells Macbeth to "wash" it away.
  • She only refers to blood with the euphemisms "filthy witness" and "deed", suggesting she can't confront the reality of her actions.
• At first, Lady Macbeth is dismissive of Macbeth's hallucinations, telling him

  "Tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil," (2.2) and his "flaws and starts" are merely

  "impostors to true fear" (3.4).
• In her final scene however, she is tormented by her own visions. She cries, "Out, damned spot!" (5.1),


  • showing she is trying to wash her hands of an invisible spot of blood.

  Its invisibility reflects how guilt doesn't have to be visible or known by others for it to be real: she knows her own guilt and cannot unlearn it.
• Cost of Guilt: Insomnia


  Lady Macbeth's sleep is disturbed by sleep walking, suggesting her mind is always racing. The Doctor notes, "A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching," (5.1), suggesting Lady Macbeth is doomed to always '' watch'' the murder be replayed.
• "Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, / That my keen knife sees not the wound it makes, / Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,"(1.5).


  She asks directly for "thick night" and "the dunnest smoke of hell", meaning she is calling upon forces of darkness to help her be wicked, whereas Macbeth is more concerned with avoiding "light" to preserve his 'pure' soul.

  However, Lady Macbeth does reveal she is concerned about discovery, wanting to stop "heaven peep[ing] through the blanket of the dark".