Shakespeare draws audiences’ attentions to Lady Macbeth carrying a light by the doctor’s speech. Doctor says “How came she by that light?” to draw audiences’ attention. Shakespeare uses this to emphasise that Lady Macbeth is afraid of the dark because she called on evil to possess on her: “unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top full Of direct cruelty!”
Lady Macbeth’s first action was rubbing her hands and this echoes the scene that she put the daggers back after Duncan’s murder and her hands are full of blood. She tries to wash the blood off but she says, “the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” Shakespeare uses the blood as a symbol of her guilty conscience that she can never forget what she has done. Apart from that, Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as very childish when she says, “Thane of Fife had a wife”. Her childish language shows vulnerability. Moreover, she was trying to wash off the blood from her “little hand”. She sounds childish because she has lost her sensibility that an adult has. Besides, after the murder of Duncan, she told Macbeth to go back to bed and told him “what is done cannot be undone”. Obviously, she is being ironic, she is worrying about it but she need to pretend as if nothing has happen. She was pretending if she could be brave and cruel like a man. Most of her speech relates to Duncan and Banquo’s murder.
Sleepwalking was considered to be related with possession by evil spirits in the past. Early on in the play, Lady Macbeth is calling evil on her by saying “come, thick night, and pull thee in the dunnest smoke of hell” which tells us she wants to throw away her feminine qualities and be cruel enough to murder Duncan. The doctor also mentions: “This disease is beyond my practice”, reveals that he is the doctor for physical treatments. What Lady Macbeth is suffering is related to mental illness or possession. Therefore, the doctor cannot promise to cure her by saying “This disease is beyond my practice”.
The reason of Lady Macbeth sleepwalking is that she disrupts the chain of being. The king is the representative of God. She was overreaching to be like a man by killing Duncan. This is also shown in doctor’s speech “Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles”, he is trying to imply that Lady Macbeth may have disrupted the chain of being and possessed by evil spirits.
The view about women at that time of the play was that they were inferior to men. Women should have tenderness and kindness. Lady Macbeth has all these qualities at the start of the play. However, she appears to be very ambitious to help Macbeth reaching highly for the kingship. She knew if she has kindness in her, then Macbeth will never be king. So she needs to murder Duncan, she needs to lose her feminine qualities and be brave like a man. Therefore, she calls on evil spirits to possess her, so she will lose her feminine qualities. She persuades Macbeth to murder Duncan, which a woman should not do. Therefore, while Shakespeare may be seen as subverting the beliefs of the society, however, things start to be returning to the natural order- Lady Macbeth is suffering from the consequences for murdering God’s representative.
Overall, the scene is quite successful in revealing Lady Macbeth’s state of mind. It shows that Lady Macbeth was worrying about her evil act. It can also summarise all the murders in the play. This scene also shows that lady Macbeth needs to talk to someone but because Macbeth is always busy thinking about killing people who are suspicious about him, he does not even have time to care about his wife. Their relationship was very close at first, but it is all over. This is emphasised when Lady Macbeth is dead. Macbeth says, “She should have died hereafter” prove that his personality is very cold and their relationship is not very close.
