Macbeth_Act_2_Scene

MACBETH ACT 2 SCENE 2 ENGLISH The whole of act 1 has been building up immense tension for the audience and at the beginning of act 2 scene 2, it is very tense. The way that act 1 has done this is by the witches talking about death, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth have been talking about death and murder and also Macbeth has been questioning himself about what the witches has told him about whether he will actually murder the King. Immediately before this scene, Macbeth decides to kill the King. Act 2 scene 2 takes place at night which creates more tension for the audience because night time is usually associated with murder. Also Lady Macbeth is becoming increasingly scared of the night by hearing the sounds of crickets, owls and other creatures. The audience would associate these sounds with evil things. The atmosphere at the beginning of act 2 scene 2 is edgy and tense due to the fact that King Duncan’s guards were drugged by Lady Macbeth through their poisoned cups of wine: ‘The doors are open and the grooms filled to excess defy their duty with snores’. ‘I have drugged their possets’. But she is worried about whether the drug will be strong enough for the guards and whether the drugs have worked or not. This adds to the tension now that she is starting to show her nerves. During the scene she performed a soliloquy which included ‘For shame! I am afraid they have gotten up, and the deed’s not done. The attempt, and not the deed Confuses us. Listen! I laid their daggers ready. He couldn’t have missed them. If the King hadn’t resembled, my father as he slept, I would’ve done it. My husband!’ This tells us that she may not trust her husband to kill the king. When Macbeth enters, he’s carrying the bloody daggers. This creates more tension for Lady Macbeth because after Macbeth had killed King Duncan with the daggers he was supposed to leave them with the drugged guards so it will look like that the guards killed King Duncan. But Macbeth had not done that, instead he brought the bloody daggers with him from King Duncan’s room dripping blood on the floor along the way. In a state of panic Lady Macbeth assured Macbeth that everything was going to fine and made him go to sleep to get him out of the way. After she cleans up the blood from the floor and places the bloody daggers among the drugged guards to frame them. The tension in line 30 to line 45 is very high. This is created by the way Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are talking in a fast pace about how they murdered King Duncan so that no one can over hear there conversation and to also just get the conversation over and done with. Due to the way that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were talking about the murders that Macbeth had committed. It was also due to their final words, which they said as they lived their final moments of life. ‘There's one who laughed in his sleep, and one cried, "Murder!", so they woke each other up. I stood and heard them. Only they said their prayers, and went back, to sleep again’. The main factor that turned the environment away from a sociable environment to a emotional one is down to Macbeth regretting to say “amen” to a soldier he was about to execute who said “God bless you”, ‘One cried, "God bless us!" and the other, "Amen." As if they had seen me with these hangmen’s hands. Listening to their fear, I couldn’t say "Amen," When they said, "God bless us.’ Macbeth could not bring himself to say the word “Amen”, but wherefore could not I pronounce “Amen”' I had most need of blessing, and “Amen” Stuck in my throat’.  Many people may find strange due to the fact that people in the Elizabethan era would have been very devoted to their religion, so for Macbeth to not reply with “amen” would have been particularly strange and shocking in certain aspects and also they would of find it this really troubling as well. The atmosphere in line 56 to line 72 is distraught, because Lady Macbeth is quarrelling with Macbeth over who did he smear the Kings blood with and what he did with the daggers he used to kill King Duncan and his soldiers with. Macbeth clumsily decided to bring the blood stained daggers back to his and Lady Macbeth’s sleeping quarters. Yet despite this Lady Macbeth tells him to lay the daggers next to the guards and smear them with the blood of the victims murdered and to wash his hands of any blood stain. ‘About things in such a crazy way. Go get some water, and wash this filthy witness from your hands. Why did you bring these daggers from the room' They must lie there. Go carry them, and smear the sleepy guards with blood.’ Ignoring Lady Macbeth, Macbeth refuses to return the daggers and lay them next to the guards he murdered. This is down to Macbeth being scared of thinking about what he has just done, and he doesn’t want to dare look upon their bodies again. ‘I'm not going back. I am afraid to think about what I have done. I don’t dare look on it again.’ Lady Macbeth’s reaction upon hearing Macbeths reply illustrates that she saw him as weak and decided to take matters into her own hands by returning back to the chambers of the murdered guards she would place the daggers used to kill them by their sides and frame them by smearing the blood from the daggers onto them. ‘Weak of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead are only like pictures. It is the eye of childhood, that’s afraid of a painted devil. If he bleeds, I'll smear the faces of the grooms with it, because it must seem that they are guilty.