Sunday, May 25, 2014

What's the presentation of suicide, talk of suicide, and self-harm in Macbeth?

Although Lady Macbeth's suicide occurs off stage and is reported after the fact, the famous scene leading up to and foreshadowing it occurs at the beginning of Act V. Here, we witness her sleepwalking. She tries, in her sleep, to wash the blood from the various murders she's been involved with off her hands. Of course, although she attempts to scrub away the bloodstains, she really has no physical blood on her hands. The "blood" represents her guilty conscience and the way the murders she and Macbeth have perpetrated torment her.
The scene is eerie and unsettling as we watch an unstable, mentally tortured person unwittingly confess her guilt. Her servants find this display, which they say has been repeated over and over, night after night, deeply unsettling. It is also ironic: Lady Macbeth was the one who pooh-poohed her husband's doubts about murdering Duncan by boasting of her hard heart and manlike strength of will. She had claimed she could dash her baby's brains out without a second thought. After the initial murder, she tells Macbeth to man up and get over it when he says in horror that Duncan's blood could turn the green seas red, but now she is the one suffering the unbearable pangs of guilt and remorse.

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