When she hears Macbeth’s doubts concerning the killing of the king, she immediately starts to challenge his man – hood, and questioning his clearness of mind. She does this by asking, “was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself?” she then starts too question his manhood by saying that he is afraid to act resolutely in order to get what he really wants, but who really wants this deed to take place? Macbeth can take no more after his wife has called him a coward, and says to her ‘Prithee, peace.’ In the short film production, Sinclair says this with great hype, he can take no more, which shows us that Lady Macbeth is getting her own away. Macbeth is clearly fickle, and easily lead. As we read on we see that yet again Lady Macbeth challenges her husband manhood by comparing him to a ‘beast’ This is clearly emphasized in the speech, referring to Macbeth as subhuman, and the lowest of the low because he has not kept the promise he made to her.
The next part of Lady Macbeth’s speech, plays a crucial part in this scene, especially to Louise Lombard. As Louise does not believe in absolute evil, she wants to be able to make her audience believe that Lady Macbeth is the same malice person as the original text makes her out to be. Louise believes that both Lady Macbeth and her husband loved this baby with great sentiment, and that Lady Macbeth is trying to get her revenge in on the world for having her only baby taken away from her, in heart-rending circumstances. This is why in the production she says these lines with great emotion and feeling to them, not like the way you would expect them to be said. With the context that they are in, I would expect them to be said with no feeling and great anger. However, even though these lines seem to mean a great deal to Lady Macbeth, straight after her saying them, she launches straight back in, trying to cast all doubt out of her husbands mind.
At this point, the worry that is going through Macbeth’s mind, is the one of which what the consequences will be if they fail to succeed. However, again Lady Macbeth challenges his faith, courage and strength by telling him, that all will be equitable, as long as he has no doubt in his mind, “but screw your courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail.”
As Lady Macbeth carries on, her voice drops down to a whisper, as she murmurs the words ‘lie as in a death.’ This shows us that she wants this all to be a big secret. Does it show us that she battling with some worry in her own mind? Maybe she is, but she is very careful not to show her weakness, as any weakness in her faith, will trigger Macbeth to turn totally against taking part in the murder.
As we read the very last line of this scene “false face must hide what the false heart doth know.” We realise that the Macbeth’s are willing to just pretend that the killing of their king is not really being committed by them, but by two masked people. I.e. they are not really in the right state of mind. However we also realise that the alliteration “false face” has been out in this sentence in order to connote evil. We see that in our society today, a masked person commits many of the inhumane deeds carried out. This is so as to take the blame away from them and put it on a ‘different person.’ However we know if we read on that, every sin is always found out. No matter how big or how small, and eventually it will end in tragic consequences for the people concerned.
I feel like Bill Alexander, did a good job in choosing the correct actress and actor to play the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and I also feel that he made a good attempt at showing what really what went on inside the heads of the Macbeth’s. This is especially apparent when they both leave the dark, dull, damp room, side by side, not hand in hand. This shows that they will always stand side by side, no matter what they will have to face.