Saturday, April 13, 2013

Describe Macbeth's state of mind after the murders.Like what does he feel like and what does he think about the murders.

In act2 sc.2, we see Macbeth return from Duncan's chamber, after having done the 'deed'. He looks quite disturbed and terrified. 'Looking on his hands', Macbeth expresses his sense of discomfort: 'This is a sorry sight'. He ignores his wife's remonstrance to go on ventilating his remorse and penitence:



There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried 'Murder!'


That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:


But they did say their prayers, and address'd them


Again to sleep..................


One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other:


As they had seen me with these hangman's hands:


Listening with fear, I could not say 'Amen',


When they did say 'God bless us!'



Macbeth seems deeply shocked that he could not utter the name of God when as a fallen man, a vile killer, he had 'most need of blessing'. His tormented conscience unveils itself in the form of delirious ravings. He regards himself as a cursed murderer who has killed sleep[Duncan in sleep being the embodiment of sleep] and is punished with sleeplessness:



Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!




Macbeth does murder sleep'............



Lady Macbeth further remonstrates her husband and asks him to get some water and 'wash the filthy witness' of his act from his hand. She goes to Duncan's chamber to keep the daggers there, and to 'gild the faces of the grooms withal' with blood. Macbeth is left alone to guilt and fear. He now envisions the conversion of the universal green into one pervading red:



What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes!


Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood


Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather


The multitudinous seas incarnadine,


Making the green one red.



Repeated knockings make Macbeth appalled and confused.


Later, when the first murderer reports to Macbeth at the door of the Banquet hall that Banquo has been dispatched to death though Fleance has escaped, Macbeth is once again extremely possessed with fear. He sees the ghost of Banquo as occupying his seat, shaking his 'gory locks' at him. His addresses to the ghost showing a paroxysm of fear expose his criminality before the nobles.





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