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British Drama

Notes him by stating that “he only lived but till he was a man,/the which no sooner had his prowess
confirmed / in the unshrinking station where he fought,/But like a man he died”. After confirming
that his son’s wounds were on his front—in other words, that the Young Siward died bravely in
battle—Siward declares that he not wish for a better death for his son.
Macduff enters, carrying Macbeth’s severed head and shouting “Hail, King of Scotland!” The men
echo this shout and the trumpets flourish as Malcolm accepts the kingship. Malcolm announces
that he will rename the current thanes as earls. He will call back all the men whom Macbeth has
exiled and will attempt to heal the scarred country. All exit towards Scone, where Malcolm will be
crowned as King of Scotland.

5.5.2 Analysis

Until Act 5, Macbeth has been tormented with visions and nightmares while Lady Macbeth has
derided him for his weakness. Now the audience witnesses the way in which the murders have also
preyed on Lady Macbeth. In her sleepwalking, Lady Macbeth plays out the theme of washing and
cleansing that runs throughout the play. After killing Duncan, she flippantly tells Macbeth that “a
little water clears us of this deed”. But the deed now returns to haunt Lady Macbeth in her sleep.
Lady Macbeth’s stained hands are reminiscent of the biblical mark of Cain—the mark that God
placed on Cain for murdering his brother Abel. But Cain’s mark is a sign from God that protects
Cain from the revenge of others. Lady Macbeth’s mark does not protect her from death, as she dies
only a few scenes later.

The doctor’s behavior in Act 5 Scene 3 resembles that of a psychoanalyst. Like a Freudian
psychoanalyst, the doctor observes Lady Macbeth’s dreams and uses her words to infer the
cause of her distress. Lady Macbeth’s language in this scene betrays her troubled mind in
many ways. Her speech in previous acts has been eloquent and smooth.
In this speech, Lady Macbeth makes use of metaphor (Duncan’s honor is “deep and broad”),
metonymy (he honors “our house,” meaning the Macbeths themselves), and hyperbole (“in every
point twice done and then done double”). Her syntax is complex but the rhythm of her speech
remains smooth and flowing, in the iambic pentameter used by noble characters in Shakespearean
plays. What a contrast it is, therefore, when she talks in her sleep in Act 5!
Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two. Why then, ‘tis time to don’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie,
a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. . . The Thane of Fife
had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no
more o’ that. You mar all with this starting.
In this speech, Lady Macbeth’s language is choppy, jumping from idea to idea as her state of mind
changes. Her sentences are short and unpolished, reflecting a mind too disturbed to speak eloquently.
Although she spoke in iambic pentameter before, she now speaks in prose—thus falling from the
noble to the prosaic.
Lady Macbeth’s dissolution is swift. As Macbeth’s power grows, indeed, Lady Macbeth’s has
decreased. She began the play as a remorseless, influential voice capable of sweet-talking Duncan
and of making Macbeth do her bidding. In the third act Macbeth leaves her out of his plans to kill
Banquo, refusing to reveal his intentions to her. Now in the last act, she has dwindled to a mumbling
sleepwalker, capable only of a mad and rambling speech. Whereas even the relatively unimportant
Lady Macduff has a stirring death scene, Lady Macbeth dies offstage. When her death is reported to
Macbeth, his response is shocking in its cold apathy.

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