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This video is a line-by-line walkthrough guide for William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Act 5, Scene 1.
I provide a close reading of the entire scene, including: — Detailed explication — Commentary — Literary analysis
All commentary is supplemented by in-text, line-by-line study notes designed to help students: — Prepare for GCSE, A-Level, IB, and AP evaluation — Prepare for general high school and college quizzes, exams, and essays — Generate ideas for analysis essays — Participate knowledgeably in class discussions Click here to download the annotated text of Macbeth: https://sites.google.com/view/shakespeare-walkthrough/home
This video discusses :
PLOT: — A gentlewoman meets a doctor late a night to observe Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking — Lady Macbeth arrives, asleep, and attempts to wash her hands of the stain of blood, a metaphor for her extreme guilt; subconsciously tries to scapegoat these “weak” feeling (guilt, fear, regret) on Macbeth — The gentlewoman and doctor are shocked and speechless
CHARACTER: — Lady Macbeth: fears punishment in afterlife = cowardice like Macbeth; Lady Mac’s conception of herself as brave will not let her consciously admit to her own fears, but her fears make themselves felt in dreams (Freud); scapegoats her husband to absolve herself of the taint of cowardice — Lady Macbeth: mirror of Macbeth; not a sociopath; morally aware; tragedy is the result of lack of self-awareness, wrong Hagrid
THEME: — Sleep as innocence/healer; “Macbeth doth murder sleep” — Nature vs the unnatural — Manhood = masculine+feminine; Lady Macbeth can’t live as the purely masculine self she attempted to create — Wasteland: in corrupt society, you may be denounced by anyone; loss of trust; gentlewoman doesn’t trust the doctor — Redemption question: are the Macbeth’s redeemed by their agonies? If not, why does Shakespeare want us to pity them, as we (and gentlewoman/doctor) pity Lady Macbeth here? — Scapegoating: Lady Macbeth’s desperate attempt to deflect weakness from herself onto Macbeth — Alienation from the self: self-deceit leads to mental breakdown — Great Chain of Being disrupted
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