The Murder scene: Act II, scene i, ii

Word of the day: Hyperbole--a deliberate exaggeration.
Homework: Scene 1 and 2 questions. Also, choose and begin your first assignment this week.

Scene one:

It is after midnight and Banquo cannot sleep. He is awake with his son Fleance, and says he fears to go to bed because his sleep will be troubled. Macbeth enters, and Banquo hears the noise and calls to his son for his sword. When he sees that it is only Macbeth, he relaxes. This is ironic as his first instinct was actually the correct one. Another ironic line is the one in which Banquo tells Macbeth that he has a diamond from Duncan to give to Lady Macbeth as she is such a good hostess. Banquo confides in Macbeth that he can't stop dreaming about the witches, but Macbeth lies and claims to have not thought of them at all. He implies that if Banquo should be loyal to him, then he will be greatly rewarded. Banquo, noble as usual, says that he will only do this if he doesn't have to do any dishonourable deeds. Macbeth then hallucinates and sees a dagger in the air, with its handle pointed toward him, covered in blood. It leads him on to the murder, and he hopes that the stones beneath his feet will not hear the sounds his footsteps make. At the end of his soliloquy, Macbeth is very sure of himself. He is taking Lady Macbeth's advice in a way, when he says that he should stop thinking and talking to himself, and just go and do it, because the more he thinks about it, the more likely he is to change his mind.

Scene two:
In Scene two, we have Lady Macbeth waiting to hear from Macbeth what has happened. She hears a noise and jumps, and then worries that Macbeth has not succeeded. We find out that she could not commit the murder herself because Duncan looked too much like her father as he slept. These two things are her first signs of weakness, and foreshadow her future breakdown. When Macbeth returns, he says that he has done the deed, but is very jumpy and nervous. We see the clear difference in their reactions to the murder. Macbeth regrets what he has done as he shows his bloody hands and speaks of not being able to sleep ever again because of what he has done. he even refuses to go back and smear the gurads faces with blood to make them look guilty, and Lady Macbeth has to do it herself. Despite her momentary weakness, she takes chanrge of the situation, ordering Macbeth around, telling him to wash his hands. She tells him not to think about it too much, or he will go mad. Then, she rushes off to make the chamberlains look guilty herself. We also see the contrast between the two of them, because MAcbeth uses a hyperbole in a very powerful line, where he claims that were he to try and wash his hands clean, he would turn the entire ocean red because what he has done is so horrible that it cannot be cleansed from him; he is apart from God now--he can't even say Amen. Lady Macbeth on the other hand, says that a little bit of water will clear them of what they have done. It is easy, she says. The scene ends with the sounds of knocking, and Macbeth wishing that the knocking were loud enough to wake Duncan.