Lady Macbeth says, “My hands are of your colour… a little water clears us of this deed.”
After this incident Macbeth is crowned king, he then orders two murderers to kill his friend Banquo and the Macduff family because Macbeth thinks they are suspicious of him becoming king. After Lady Macbeth sleepwalking scene Macbeth is killed by Macduff.
Shakespeare increases tension and sympathy for Lady Macbeth because he does not incorporate her in Act three. He does this to increase the credibility of her illness; he shows this by not including her in Act three as she is too ill to attend any parts of the play.
In Act five Scene one it starts off with the audience hearing the Gentlewoman and the Doctor describing Lady Macbeth’s mental deterioration and they also hear of her confessions. I think she does this because of all the stress, strain and guilt has taken its toll, making her confess subconsciously while sleeping. Hearing about her illness before seeing it heightens tension because the audience want to find out if what the Doctor and Gentlewoman has said is true.
The Gentlewoman says, “I have seen her rise from her bed,… unlock her closet, take forth paper… write upon’t …seal it.”
Shakespeare does not include Lady Macbeth in any of Act four; this also increases tension in the play because after we have heard the Gentlewoman speak about Lady Macbeth’s actions, we are then eager to see Lady Macbeth’s condition. When Lady Macbeth does enter the room she is completely changed from when we last saw her. This is a contrast from before the murder of King Duncan as she was very stable then.
Lady Macbeth says “Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, stop up th’ access and passage to remorse…”
Lady Macbeth says “The Thane of Fife had a wife where is she now?”
In the first quote from Act one Scene five she is very in control of the situation as she is asking for more strength and help from dark spirits. In the second quote in Act five Scene one she rhymes in a childish technique. This shows her mentality has decreased rapidly after the murder of King Duncan as there is only a few Acts between the quoted scenes. The audience, seeing her in this transformed state, are shocked because she was so in control before the murder but now she is surprisingly unstable. The Doctor also thinks she is unstable as he orders the gentlewoman to take away anything that she could harm herself with.
Doctor says “Remove from her means of all annoyance…”
I think the audience could also feel quite sympathetic towards Lady Macbeth because she only wanted to murder Duncan so Macbeth could become King.
Lady Macbeth says “ ‘Hail King that shalt be!’ ”
When Lady Macbeth is speaking in her sleep she talks about the murder of King Duncan, Banquo and the Macduff family being murdered. By doing this she incriminates Macbeth as she says “Fie my Lord… who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
When she speaks she also convicts herself because she tries to get the imaginary blood of her hands, while before the murder she says “ ‘A little water clears us of this deed’…” but after the murder she says “ ‘here’s the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.’ ” The irony here is that straight after the murder she says to Macbeth that a “little water clears us of this deed” but now she is obsessed by guilt. She also uses an example of a hyperbole as she is deliberately exaggerating when she says “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
When Lady Macbeth convicts Macbeth and herself the Doctor reacts in the same way as the audience would. At the beginning of Act five Scene one the Gentlewoman hints about what is to come.
Gentlewoman says “I have seen her rise from her bed… take forth paper, fold it write upon’t… return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.” Hearing this first builds up tension as we want to make sure it is true.
When the Doctor hears what Lady Macbeth discloses he says “This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.” This shows the Doctor has sympathy for Lady Macbeth, the audience also feels sorry for Lady Macbeth. It is strange that Doctor is sympathetic because in Shakespearean times sleepwalking was thought to mean that the person was possessed by demons. The Doctor also says in the quote that she won’t get better, and in the next scene lady Macbeth dies.
I was asked to discuss if Shakespeare’s use of dramatic technique heightens tension and increases audience sympathy for Lady Macbeth.
Shakespeare heightens tension at the start of the book because he makes Macbeth unsure if he should kill the king or let fate decide. He increases the tension more when Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill the king, when he is still deciding if he should or not. After the murder, the audience was not sympathetic towards Lady Macbeth because she was still trying to persuade Macbeth that is was alright to kill the King, while Macbeth was sorry for what he had done straight after the murder. Shakespeare also amplifies the tension when we see the opening of Act five Scene one, this is when we hear what Lady Macbeth has been doing in her sleep, but we have still to see this. This adds tension as we want to know if the Gentlewoman’s theories are correct. When we find out that what she is saying true then the audience is concerned for Lady Macbeth, this is odd as we know she is evil but we still feel sorry for her and want her to get better. When Lady Macbeth does die we don’t hear much about it so the audience’s sympathy was not increased.
I thought that “Macbeth” is a very interesting play, as the story had many different contrasts. I also thought that Shakespeare was very in control of the play’s tension and he knew when and how to increase or decrease the audience’s sympathy and concern for the characters, especially Lady Macbeth’s character.
