What is the tone of this piece? If you were the director, how would you instruct Lady Macbeth to verbally recite these lines? Would there be a change at any point? If so, where and what would it be?
LADY MACBETH: Give him tending; He brings great news. [Exit MESSENGER] The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry ‘Hold, hold!’
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1) What are your first impressions of Lady Macbeth in this scene?
2) What is the tone of this piece? If you were the director, how would you instruct Lady Macbeth to verbally recite these lines? Would there be a
change at any point? If so, where and what would it be?
3) Are you surprised by Lady Macbeth’s reaction to Macbeth’s letter? Explain why or why not.
4) When Lady Macbeth calls on the spirits to “unsex” her, she wants them to take away her femininity: why?