ISC Macbeth Workbook Answers ( Evergreen ) : Act 5 Scene 1

This is the famous sleep walking scene of the play and takes place in Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane. Lady Macbeth has drifted quite apart from her husband, Macbeth. She has been sleep walking as she is suffering from the reproaches of her conscience which she has been supressing for quite some time by sheer force of will. It is in her sleep that she loses control over herself and gives vent to her sufferings, fear and agitation in her sleep-like state.

A doctor has been engaged to help cure her while a Gentlewoman is always there to attend to her. After two nights of watching, the doctor finally gets the chance to see Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep. She enters the room with a taper in her hand. Her eyes are open but have a vacant expression in them. She continuously rubs her hands as though she is washing them.

She speaks incoherently to herself while walking in her sleep. On entering she cries, Out damned spot, out I say……referring to the imaginary stains of blood on her hands. As the clock strikes she counts the hour by saying, One, two, and speaks out, Tis time to do ‘t, referring to the time of Duncan’s murder. Her memory of Duncan’s murder fills her with remorse and the fear of punishment after death. She begins to shiver as she conjures up a picture of hell in her imagination and says, Hell is murky and remembering how Duncan had been reluctant to commit Duncan’s murder, she rebukes her husband saying, Fie my lord, fie, a soldier and afraid?” Now in astonishment she says that one would never have thought that the old man would have so much blood in him. Her mind drifts to the wife of the Thane of Fife, then to the Banquet again where she seems to be addressing Macbeth. She gazes at her hands and with a deep sigh regrets that all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten away the smell of blood from her hands.

Lady Macbeth, filled with remorse, is a bag of confused emotions and her thoughts are all confused as she flits from one memory to another of one murder after another, of urging Macbeth to wash his hands and put on his night clothes to cover up for his crime, then utters that Banquo is in his grave and cannot rise from it, the very next moment she reverts once more to the night of Duncan’s murder and says that the deed is done, she hears the knocking at the gate and finally she says, What’s done cannot be undone and then departs with the words, To bed, to bed, to bed on her lips. She leaves as quietly as she had appeared.

The doctor and the Gentlewoman are both shocked as Lady Macbeth betrays herself in her sleeping state of mind. The doctor, after observing Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep at once understands that these unnatural troubled thoughts of Lady Macbeth proceed from the unnatural foul deeds which she and her husband have committed in the past which are continuously playing on her troubled conscience. He comments upon the ugly rumours that evil deeds have been done which are bound to reflect in some way. He says that it is beyond his power to cure her of this disease as she requires divine help and not the help of a physician.. However, he instructs the Gentlewoman to keep a strict watch on her, lest she should indulge in violent deeds.