Act V: Scene 1
Summary
Lady Macbeth
has gone mad. Like her husband, she cannot find any rest, but she is suffering
more clearly from a psychological disorder that causes her, as she sleepwalks,
to recall fragments of the events of the murders of Duncan, Banquo, and Lady
Macduff. These incriminating words are overheard by the Doctor and a
lady-in-waiting.
Analysis
The staging
of this scene is made clear by the first ten lines of the scene. The
gentlewoman's description of how Lady Macbeth has sleepwalked in the past acts
as a stage direction for the actress playing Lady Macbeth. Her agitated reading
of a letter is of course a visual reminder of her reading of the fateful letter
in Act I, Scene 5. More than this, Lady Macbeth is seen to rub her hands in a
washing action that recalls her line "A little water clears us of this
deed" in Act II, Scene 2. If these words are not enough to arouse the
Doctor's suspicions, those that follow must suggest to him not only that she is
suffering but also the reason for that suffering.
Lady
Macbeth's speech has become fragmented and broken by an enormous emotional
pressure: the suave hostess and cool, domineering wife has been reduced to a
gibbering creature whose speech (almost) signifies nothing. There are no
logical connections between her memories or her sentences, and indeed, the
devastation of her mind is so complete that she cannot recall events in their
correct order. For example, "Out damned spot" is followed by
"The Thane of Fife had a wife," referring to Lady Macduff. Later we
hear the line "Banquo's buried: he cannot come out on's grave," and
finally she believes she hears Macduff knocking at the gate. It is as though
all the individual murders have coalesced into one seamless pageant of blood.
Perhaps the most ironic line is the one which near-perfectly echoes an earlier
line of Macbeth's. When Lady Macbeth cries "all the perfumes of Arabia
will not sweeten this little hand," we must not forget that she was not on
stage to hear her husband's "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this
blood / Clean from my hand?" (Act II, Scene 2).
Lady
Macbeth's line "What's done cannot be undone" not only reverses her
earlier argument to her husband "what's done is done" (Act III, Scene
2); it also recalls the words of the general confession from the Prayer Book:
"We have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is
no health in us." The Doctor agrees: In his opinion, Lady Macbeth needs a
"divine," — a priest — more than a doctor, reminding the audience of
Macbeth's earliest doubts when he argues with himself before the murder of
Duncan, "If it were done when 'tis done . . . we'd jump the life to
come" (I:7,1-6).
Now, though,
the promise of salvation has been all but abandoned. "Hell is murky,"
says Lady Macbeth, and that spiritual darkness is echoed by the fact that the
scene is played entirely in the dark, with the exception of one candle, which
Lady Macbeth insists on having next to her. She may be sleepless, but it is her
soul's rest that really concerns her.
Glossary
accompt (37)
account
practice (55)
medical expertise
divine (71) priest
mated (75)
amazed
