Macbeth is a Shakespearean tragedy. It involves the inevitable fate of someone, Macbeth, who challenges the natural order of things. Macbeth defeats the enemies of King Duncan when all seems lost. He is greeted by the witches after the battle and declared Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and the future king of Scotland. Macbeth reacts in a way which surprises his companion Banquo. This is because it reflects his own secret ambitions, namely, to become king. Duncan stays overnight at Macbeth's castle. Encouraged by his wife Lady Macbeth who is also ambitious for power. Macbeth murders Duncan and lays the blame on Duncan's guards who he kills. So begins an inevitable downward spiral for both into increasing violence, isolation, madness and death. Macbeth murders anyone who he sees as a potential rival including Macduff's wife and children. He also has Banquo murdered but his son Fleance escapes. This confirms the prophecy of the witches that Banquo's line would produce future kings. Macbeth has eventually isolated as all desert him. His wife, now insane, dies. Macbeth confronts the opposing army safely in the knowledge that, as the witches predicted, no man born of a woman can kill him. When he fights Macduff, the latter tells Macbeth that he was born by what we would know to call Caesarean. Macbeth knows his fate is sealed and is slain by Macduff. Duncan's son Malcolm becomes king and the normal balance of society is restored.
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| https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/character-analysis-lady-macbeth |
It is the scene in which Lady Macbeth is found to be walking in sleep. Lady Macbeth first asleep is moving with a candle in hand. From the attending woman, we come to know that by her instruction a taper is always placed at her bedside for she cannot stand darkness. The terrible memories of the past led to the sickness of the mind. While walking in sleep she speaks incoherently of the horrible past. She rubs her hands and whispers, ‘out, dammed spot’. She utters the words with which she led Macbeth on to the crime! “Fie, my lord Fie! A soldier, and afraid? Then the horrible sight of Duncan lying in a pool of blood ever haunts her like a nightmare! Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? She looks at her hands and cries out, what these hands will never be clean. Next, she utters the words with which she chastised her husband at the banquet scene, ‘You married all with the starting’. She seems to hear still the sound of knocking night at the gate at the castle in the down that follows the night of the murder and goes to bed panic-stricken. Thus, this scene shows that the imagination of lady Macbeth has broken loose and running wild resulting in a serious of strange flashbacks. The most important dramatic function of the scene lies in the fact that it shows that the collapse of Lady Macbeth is now complete. In the earlier scene of the tragedy, she appears stronger than her husband, but she is afraid.
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