Macbeth
by
William Shakespeare
(Sleep-Walking
Scene)
Sleep-walking scene is one of the important
scenes in the play Macbeth as it shows the perturbed condition of Lady
Macbeth’s mind. The other important thing of this scene is that the doctor and
the maid come to know the guilt of Macbeths. The sleep-walking scene is the
first scene of Act 5 of the play ‘Macbeth’. The scene portrays the
psychological state of Lady Macbeth. In the state of sleep, she walks and
confesses their guilt. Initially her maid comes to know about the crime of
Macbeths but she is afraid of taking their names before others. The maid knows the secret of Lady Macbeth’s
anxiety but she does not tell this to the doctor and asks him to watch on her
regularly.
Shakespeare
presents on the stage the terrible theme of how the entire personality of a
human being is eaten up by the sense of guilt. In Lady Macbeth the sense is so
strong and deeply rooted in the unconscious that it ultimately brings about
psychological disorder in her personality. Lady Macbeth is not the victim of a
blind fate or destiny or punished by a moral law, but affected by a mental
disease. The devastation of her mind is so complete that there are no logical
connections between her memories or her sentences.
The
doctor and the attending maid see Lady Macbeth getting up from her bed, putting
on her gown and rubbing her both hands, confesses her secret of murdering
Duncan. The doctor, like the maid, is greatly astonished at the revelation. He
now comes to know that Lady Macbeth does not need his care. It is her
heat-oppressed mind which is responsible for her misery. As a man of science,
the Doctor provides the final commentary on the inevitability of the
cause-effect relation:
“Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles:
infected minds
To their deaf pillows
will discharge their secrets”.
In
the first act of the play Lady Macbeth seems to be a vamp because she leads
Macbeth to Duncan’s murder. In the play we see whatever she does she does for
her husband. She does not have ambition to become a queen rather she endeavors
to make her husband a king. Morally she has a higher place than Macbeth. It
seems to us that Lady Macbeth is responsible for Macbeth’s tragedy. It seems to
us that Lady Macbeth is a woman of vices and Macbeth a man of kindly nature but
as soon as the first murder of Duncan is committed the process of change, in
their character, starts. Macbeth becomes hardened and does not feel any kind of
anxiety or perplexity while committing any murderous act whereas Lady Macbeth
is involved only in the planning of Duncan’s murder. After the murder of Duncan,
she has not been asked for help or is consulted by Macbeth.
In
this sleep-walking scene the anxiety and perplexity of Lady Macbeth shows her
true character. Her kind conscience rebukes her and she becomes the victim of
sleep-walking. 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). Finally, she emerges as a human
being of flesh and blood completely devastated by guilt and shame, as opposed
to her witchlike personality in the earlier scenes and she gains the sympathy
of the readers.
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