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Macbeth Act 2 notes - Kirsty Clyne

SCENE 1
Banquo is with his son Fleance, but is on high alert in Macbeth’s castle
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Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses sleep imagery to show two different things about
the characters if they cannot sleep:
The first is that they must be worried about something
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Banquo cannot sleep because he is worried about Macbeth’s reaction when the witches
told them the prophecy, and he is not happy with Macbeth’s “cursed thoughts”
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The relationship between the two men has become very strained, and there is a clear
crack in their friendship due to the witches foreseeing that Banquo’s descendants shall
become king, meaning that Macbeth’s children will not
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Although she is not in the scene, a part
of her is still present
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Banquo hands Macbeth a diamond, a gift from Duncan for Lady Macbeth
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The audience knows that the ring of the bell signals that Macbeth shall kill Duncan
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Macbeth hallucinates a dagger in the air, with the handle pointing towards himself
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He takes out his own dagger and
compares it to the hallucinated one, before noticing the hallucinated dagger has now
became covered in blood - Dunan’s blood
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He understands that he is killing God’s representation, aware of
the darkness and still has a slight fear that he may be caught and have to face the
consequences
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There is no doubt at all that he
should not do this, and all fear about being caught has been wiped away due to Lady
Macbeth’s brilliant plan
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She is also slightly nervous about this task,
and her senses have became heightened
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The owl
is associated with wisdom but it is also associated with death, and in this case it is
signalling Duncan’s death
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She notes that “had
he not resembled [her] father” she would “had done’t” herself
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Macbeth then enters
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Macbeth, however, is now
speaking figuratively, showing that he is not fully in control of himself and is incredibly
anxious
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The audience does not notice this until he now raises his
hands
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Lady Macbeth immediately brushes his regret away, knowing that it is silly to think like that
now
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After these ways” “so it will make us mad”
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There is another example of the sleep imagery here, where Macbeth has killed sleep as he
murdered Duncan when the man was sleeping
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“balm of hurt minds” gives the idea that sleep can solve all problems and emotional
damage
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It is quickly discovered that Macbeth has brought the daggers back despite the plan
requiring him to leave them in the hands of the drugged guards
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Lady Macbeth tells him that she will sort it, taking the daggers from him (“give me the
daggers”) and covering herself in blood in the progress
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The house is now awake, increasing the danger for the couple as knocking is heard at
their door
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“A little water clears us of this deed” indicates that Lady Macbeth believes that by washing
their hands, they will easily be able to blame it on the guards and move on from this
terrible act
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“Wake Duncan with thy knocking, I would thou couldst” - Macbeth is regretting killing
Duncan and is already wishing they could wake him up right now
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He is a humorous characters and helps to
lower the tension and the suspense that has just been built up
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“but this place is too cold for hell” - he calls it worse than hell, symbolising the castle has
became a representation of hell now that God’s representative has been murdered in a
devilish act
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This
realisation brings the audience back to the fact that Duncan has just been murdered, and
this is what Macduff shall find
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Macduff returns, declaring Duncan’s death to all
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He insists that
Macbeth goes in and sees the acts that have occurred, reminding the audience how much
Macbeth really didn’t want to ever have to set foot in the death scene again
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He has
started to use figurative language, meaning that he is losing control and is in danger of
giving the true murderers identity away
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“Your royal father’s murder’d” - Macduff is very straight to the point for the king’s sons
whereas Macbeth is still being ridiculously figurative
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Banquo is silent
throughout all of this as he is already putting two and two together and suspecting that
Macbeth has murdered the king
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Macbeth says that he was furious about the death of his king and friend, and could not
stop himself from killing them in a fit of rage
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Malcolm and Donaldblain have decided that they cannot trust anyone (“Where we are,
there’s daggers in men’s smiles”) and have planned to split up so they cannot be killed as
easily
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SCENE 4
Macduff and Ross are discussing the death of the King and the story of how it happened
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Macduff does not believe for a minute that the sons are responsible and that Macbeth is
innocent in all of this
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