Macbeth LRJ #2

Sarita Beekie
Ms. Peifer
10 IB - Hour 5
23 February 2009

Macbeth LRJ #2

As the story of Macbeth develops, readers begin to find in the second act that the "first-impression" characteristics of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth begin to become clearer and more blatant. Also, new facets of their complex characters begin to become visible in the second act, as well. As Macbeth moves into the second act, Macbeth becomes more torn between his moral conscience and his evil desires, especially now that he has killed Duncan, and because of this (and his blatant inconsistencies up to this point), he begins to suffer from extreme guilt. In response to Lady Macbeth chiding him for falling through with the last steps of their murder plot, he replies, "I'll go no more. I am afraid to think what I have done; look on't again I dare not" (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 2, ii, 53-55) and then goes on to say, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the miltudinous seas incarnidine making the green one red." From this, readers can also infer that although Macbeth may be a warrior, he clearly does not have the heart of a cold-blooded murderer. As far as new characteristics, Macbeth begins to show his first signs of definite mental instability when he begins to monologue, "Is this the dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee...a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw" (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 2, i, 34-42).

Lady Macbeth on the other hand, shows no remorse for the heinous acts that she and Macbeth have planned and carried out, and contrary to Macbeth's increasing uncertainty with this whole operation, Lady Macbeth becomes increasingly bolder. "That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; what hath quenched them hath given me fire" (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 2, ii, 1-2) is her response to poisoning Duncan's guards. However, as bold and as domineering as Lady Macbeth may be, she has her own share of inconsistencies, as well. As she waits for Macbeth after she has poisoned the guards, she says to herself, "Had he [Duncan] not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't" (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 2, 11, 12-13) bearing in mind that this is the same lady who said, "How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me; I would while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this" (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 1, vii, 56-59).

There are several reoccurring themes that transfer from act one to act two, as well. Such as the abnormal weather patterns. When the first witch is offended by a woman who, "wouldn't share her chestnuts", the Weird Sisters cry out, "Weary sev'nnights nine times nine shall he dwindle, peak, and pine. Though his bark cannot be lost, yet it shall be tempest-tossed." (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 1, iii, 22-25) and they send a wrathful storm out to the woman's seaward husband. Then after Duncan is discovered dead, Ross comments, "By th' clock 'tis day, and yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp. Is't night's predominance or the day's shame that darkness does the face of the earth entomb when living light should kiss it?" (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 2, iv, 6-10).