Macbeth, by William Shakespeare: Student Responses   Question 1 What is the atmosphere on the night of the murder?  What are the elements which contribute to this mood?  Refer to specific aspects such as setting, characterization, language, imagery and any other details which you consider important. Lavinia | Cecilia | Camilla     Question 2 How does Shakespeare keep the level of tension high straight after the murder of Duncan and through to the final scene in Act 2?  We get a response to the murder not only from Macbeth and Lady Macbeth but from others who are not directly involved.  What are these reactions?   Lavinia | Cecilia | Camilla | Tommy | Myrlande     Back to MS Literature Pages

What is the atmosphere on the night of the murder?  What are the elements which contribute to this mood?  Refer to specific aspects such as setting, characterization, language, imagery and any other details which you consider important.

 

 

 

On the night before the murder, the first thing we see is Banquo in Macbeth's castle, enveloped in a thick, black blanket of the dark.  This is the dark night Lady Macbeth and Macbeth had so keenly longed for and it's the perfect time to murder Duncan.  Banquo is deeply agitated, the witches have had a profound impact on him and he tells us he can't sleep.  Just the fact that the Act starts in the middle of a thick, black night with someone who can't sleep creates unbearable tension.  This tension is created by many different elements. 

 

At the softest sound, Banquo takes his sword out.  This isn't a normal thing to do in your friend's castle.  Also, Banquo and Macbeth are presented to us together once again, but they just don't link anymore.  They use opposite imagery: Banquo refers to 'heaven', 'candles' and 'merciful powers', while Macbeth has completely aligned himself with evil.  He talks about 'wicked dreams' and 'witchcraft'.  Banquo remains loyal to the king, as always, but what Macbeth is doing is anything but loyal. 

Later, in his soliloquy, Macbeth starts to hallucinate.  He sees a bloody dagger, the dagger of the 'dagger of the mind', and has traveled right down the loop of insanity.  This makes us feel very tense and uncomfortable, and at this point we are afraid of him.  He keeps talking about sleep, and will continue to do so even after the murder.   Duncan is murdered in his sleep, the state in which he is most vulnerable, and killing him will mean to Macbeth killing sleep as well.  The sleep imagery, together with the blood imagery and the reference to witches, makes the atmosphere slightly mystical as well as tense. 

 

The tension is also expressed by Lady Macbeth at the beginning of scene 2.  She is jittery and nervous and even though she seems her usual strong self, we can see her fear.  In fact we often recognize ourselves in  Lady Macbeth, as well as Macbeth himself.  We feel her tension as she jumps at every sound.  She has high expectations of this 'business' and so do we.  It is Macbeth who with his 'heat-oppress'd brain', keeps us tensed up but excited at the same time from this point on.  While she is waiting, Lady Macbeth refers to different symbols of ill omen, such as the owl and the crickets.  Macbeth is in a nightmare up until the murder and after the murder he wakes up, to an even worse nightmare which is real this time.  There is a great continuity of tension before and after the murder, but somehow everything changes.  And yet nothing does, because it's just the prophecy coming true.

 

Lavinia  8C

 

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From the beginning we know that it is late in the night after the party: 'How goes the night, boy?' As soon as Banquo starts talking we know he is agitiated.  We are told that there is something that is preventing him from sleeping.  Another hint that we are given is when Macbeth arrives and Banquo is alarmed and ready to take out his sword,

'Give me my sword - Who's there?'

 

Something that also creates an atmosphere of awkwardness between Banquo and Macbeth is the way they are speaking to each other.  As Macbeth and Banquo start talking the atmosphere becomes intense and scary as we are reminded of the witches;

'I dream'd last night of the three weird sisters;

To you they have show'd some truth.'

There is also an atmosphere of mysteriousness when Macbeth says,

'If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,

 It shall make honour for you.' 

This is also dramatic irony.  We know what Macbeth is talking about while Banquo doesn't.  The atmosphere for the audience is also full of dramatic irony throughout the act because we know the secrets that the characters on stage don't know. 

 

In scene two the tense atmosphere gradually increases while Macbeth has visions and Lady Macbeth is anxious to know about 'It', 'the deed', and what is taking him so long.

The language is another contributing factor to this intense atmosphere.  Macbeth has turned to evil and when he speaks it seems as if the witches are speaking through him with rhyming couplets and mysterious language.  Macbeth personifies murder as something that is keeping his attention and drawing him towards Duncan's chamber.  Dreaming and sleeping imagery is present in both scenes (1 & 2).  Macbeth defines sleep when he says,

'Sleep that knits up the ravell'ed sleeve of care,

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast.'

Macbeth's anxiety is extreme and he believes he has heard voices crying out.

'Still it cried, 'Sleep no more' to all the house;

'Glamis hath murder'd sleep', and therefore Cawdor

Shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more.'

 

Cecilia 8C

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We are introduced to this act in a moment of sleep and rest.  Everyone is asleep but not Macbeth and Lady Macbeth who have to commit the terrible deed.  All he emotions and feelings that the characters are feeling, we feel too.  We feel Macbeth's emotions which are; fear, tension and agitation, and Lady Macbeth's too.  The atmosphere on the night of the murder is, panic, fear, tension and agitation.  One of the main elements which affects sleep is, sleep.  Sleep is considered as being a time of peace;

'The innocent sleep,

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast.' 

Here Shakespeare gives us a clear definition of sleep.  He compares sleep to the main dish, and says that without it you can't live, just like without sleep you can't live.

The setting is Macbeth's castle at night.  An element that adds to this suspenseful atmosphere is dramatic irony.  Dramatic irony is always present in this act because we know who the assassin is, while the characters don't.  This creates great anxiety at every stage of act 1.

The hallucinations that Macbeth is having - things you think you can see or hear that are really not there - create suspense and anxiety because we don't know if Macbeth is becoming crazy or if he is really seeing things like, 'A dagger of the mind', or the 'fatal vision'.  Even the fact that Shakespeare does not describe the actual scene when the deed is happening, makes us tense.  We don't know what is happening in Duncan's chamber, and we are not sure if Macbeth is completing the deed or not until he comes out of the room and tells Lady Macbeth,

'I have done the deed.  Didst thou not hear a noise?' 

The word deed reminds us of Macbeth's soliloquy in Act 1 scene 7.  It's important because in the soliloquy Macbeth reveals his deepest thoughts and reasons for not committing the murder. At the beginning of scene 2 we see how much Lady Macbeth is worried.  She continues to repeat, 'Hark', at every noise she hears.  Even the language Shakespeare uses is very jumpy. The dialogue between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth is very short and fast during this tense meeting.  Our preoccupation that Macbeth may be discovered becomes even more intense when he forgets to leave the 'bloody daggers' by the body and is then unwilling to take them back near the quards.

The use of metaphors, personification and imagery which deals with blood, madness, sickness and fear makes the atmosphere even more heavy and tense.

Camilla 8C

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Shakespeare maintains the high tension by the language he uses; especially the dialogue between the characters, and the very words people use. The tension that exists between people is obvious.

'Approach the chamber and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon.'

This line suggests how terrifying the scene must have been. There is great agitation and tension between the characters. Macbeth's reaction to his bloody actions is terrible. The hallucinations he begins to have prove to us how much this deed has affected him.

Now Macbeth becomes a completely different person. He changes from the start of the play, from being brave and valiant, to be shaken by the witches' prophesies, then to brain and heart sick, to ruthless evil. He becomes nearly a tyrant who is ready to do anything to satisfy his needs.

Lady Macbeth on the other hand goes from being strong, to fragile and weak. She is no longer strong. All the characters react in different ways to the murder of Duncan. The two sons of the King, Donaldbain and Malcolm, run away to Ireland and England, since they fear for their safety. Banquo shows sadness and horror at the deed. His king has died, and he remains profoundly marked by this. Macduff, I believe, is the character who most will suffer the consequences of Duncan's death, other than Macbeth. As soon as he sees Duncan's dead body he sounds the alarm and wakes up the castle's inhabitants with;

'O horror, horror, horror,
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive, nor name thee.'

The last scene in Act 2 is very significant because we see these shocking events from the outside. The Old Man and Ross talk about very strange happenings, like an owl killing a falcon and Duncan's horses breaking their stalls and eating each other. These elements maintain the tension throughout the Act.

These characters also talk about wild storms full of thunder and 'strange screams of death' in the night. They also tell us that in the daytime it's still dark. Darkness is ever present,

'Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb
When living light should kiss it?

The words light and dark are constantly repeated, and we learn about the unnatural darkness of the play. This is an example of personification.
'By th'clock 'tis day
And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp,'
Macbeth is wearing a mask, but it is starting to slip. He tells the shocked gathering that he could not 'refrain' from killing the guards because he,
'had a heart to love and in that heart
Courage to make's love known?'

Macbeth tries with these words to show how much he 'loved' the King and was 'loyal' to him. Macbeth is starting to act independently, as when he killed the guards without consulting Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is losing her power.

Camilla 8C

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The tension is kept high by many factors that make the play so exciting.  Straight after the murder, the intense silence is suddenly broken by the owl shrieking and this scares Lady Macbeth.  The owl keeps our anxiety extreme because the owl is the 'watchman' who sees everything, he is the animal of the night and because we don't want Macbeth to get caught, we fear that he is going to see and tell everything, even if he can't.  Every single sound is received as a signal of somebody or something watching and so it creates a very tense and suspenseful atmosphere at this point in the play. 

The bloody daggers create a lot of suspense, because when Macbeth calls out, 'Whos's there? What ho?' we get very scared because we don't know if it is him and also the daggers will reveal that he has done the killing.  If Macbeth has the daggers, it means that he hasn't left them on the guards as they had planned and if someone sees them they are going to get caught.  When Lady Macbeth realizes this she goes to put the daggers back in their place.  All this moving about in the castle in the depth of night is very strange because everyone else is sleeping in their rooms while Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are going back and forth in the corridors and courtyard and we don't want them to get caught. 

The bloody hands are a sign of death and guilt, and this shocks Macbeth and creates more tension when he stares at them because we realize that now, that blood will never wash away and he will feel guilty forever. 

Even the knocking breaks the silence.  The knocking makes us think that now they are going to get caught and in the silence of night it becomes very frightening.  When the knocking starts it doesn't stop and so we feel like we are going to get caught just like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

When the porter talks about the alcohol and how it gives us the feeling that we can do better but actually we are less concentrated and so less able to perform, may be applied to the murder and how Macbeth could have missed something.

Finally, in the morning when Macbeth meets with the others and they find out that Duncan has been killed, Macbeth says he killed the guards in a moment of fury.  This is completely unexpected and we feel confused just like Lady Macbeth does. Lady Macbeth faints at this point which distracts everyone's attention from Macbeth but we feel anxious about these sudden, unexpected events and this adds to the great tension because now Macbeth is definitely in danger of being caught for his crime.

Tommy 8C

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How does Shakespeare keep the level of tension high straight after the murder of Duncan and through to the final scene in Act 2?  We get a response to the murder not only from Macbeth and Lady Macbeth but from others who are not directly involved.  What are these reactions?

After the murder has been done, we are kept with our breaths held the whole time.  We have different elements that trigger this.  The main cause though, is the fact that Shakespeare takes us into Macbeths's mind.  We slip into his shoes, are witnesses to his every thought, his every movement.  We participate in this murder and know every single thing about it.  The elements which create tension after the murder mostly flow right from this.  The most dominant aspect, the one that has us pulling our hair out from the frustration and is also making us smile mischievously because we are in on a secret no one else knows, is the dramatic irony.

In scenes 1 and 3, which are the ones where Macbeth is talking to outsiders, every single thing he says is equivocal.  Everything he says to Banquo in Scene 1 has a double meaning, and although Banquo thinks he understands what Macbeth is saying, he really isn't.  But this is before the murder. It's after the murder that the dramatic irony is present in great intensity, and creates heightened suspense.  Every reaction Macbeth has is strange, and though it seems normal at that moment because of all the chaos, it gradually leads to suspicion.  When Macbeth responds, 'T'was a rough night', to the description Lennox gives him about the terrible night there was in the natural world, we know Macbeth is referring to something else.  But no one else realizes. 

He does other things that are very strange, such as saying, 'What is't you say, the life?' fixating on that word rather awkwardly.  Also, he kills the guards and makes a whole big dramatic scene about it.  In that case, we are as shocked as Lady Macbeth is about it, because we know he's out of control.  In this case, someone does notice and grows suspicious.  When asked about who is assumed to have killed Duncan, Macduff says, 'Those that Macbeth hath slain'.  He implicates Macbeth, drawing attention to how strange it is that he killed the guards and implying that there must be a reason why.  Ross also doubts the fact that the guards killed Duncan when he says, 'What good could they pretend?' meaning, what would they get out of killing Duncan?  So we see how different the situation is when transferred out of the context of the murder scene, when everybody isn't so shocked and can see things more clearly.

We are also kept hanging by other events.  When the deed has just been done, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth stand in the courtyard holding bloody daggers and confer for what seems like hours in the middle of the night.  Since Shakespeare puts us on their side, we are about as tense and jumpy as they are.   We are startled at every sound and we are afraid that someone might catch them.  Also, we are concerned by Macbeth's deteriorating mind.  We see him fall apart and worry with Lady Macbeth that he will go completely insane and ruin everything. 

Another thing that keeps us holding our breaths is the beginning of scene 3, where we have the porter doing his comical, drunken bit.  This is supposed to be comical relief but for those of us who are really involved in the play, we are more stressed than ever.  From the moment the knocking starts, our hearts start beating really fast and we mentally urge Lady Macbeth and Macbeth to leave the scene of the crime and for the porter to get over his 'hangover' and go open the gate.  We are constantly kept on a high and are just as desperate to know what comes next.  That is just how Shakespeare does it.

Lavinia 8C

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There are many factors that keep the level of tension high all through Act 2.  Right after the murder as soon as Macbeth comes and talks to Lady Macbeth, we are immediately agitated and tense, alarmed because Macbeth has the daggers still in his hands.  This makes us worried and scared that he will get caught.   Something that for me is an even bigger action that creates tension is the knocking at 'the south entry'. We are scared and are wondering who it might be at that early hour. 

 

Another crucial element of this agitation is the porter who represents the people in the castle who don't know about the murder.  The porter does not immediately open the gate, so for a long time we are left hanging, full of suspense, and are wondering who he is and what is going to happen once he opens the gate.  Is he going to find Duncan dead? 

      

Before the knocking there is also another factor that scares us:  Macbeth's behaviour. He is out of his mind and almost crazy.  We don't know what he could do next.  Macduff had come to take the king to another castle and we, who know that Duncan has been murdered, wonder how he will he react. When Macduff discovers the murder he is horrified and in his response personifies the king as a building that is no longer standing.

'Confusion now hath made his masterpiece:

 Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence

The life o'th'building.'

 

Malcolm and Donalbain's reactions are very understandable.  As soon as they find their father dead they talk briefly in private and decide to leave the castle immediately because they fear for their own lives, knowing that now they cannot trust anyone anymore.

     

Macduff we find later is very suspicious of Macbeth and says he will not assist at his   crowning ceremony. Tension also arises from what we are told by the old man about what happened during the night of the murder; such strange happenings as an owl killing a falcon, or the wild storm during the night.  Macbeth's reaction is even more unexpected.  He goes mad and we understand what severe damage this murder has brought him.  Lady Macbeth's reaction is a bit unexpected and not as understandable as Macbeth's.  The minute Lady Macbeth hears about the murder she responds with the equivocal,

 'Woe, alas,

What in our house?'

       

Last but not least what is so exciting and special about Macbeth is that he takes us directly inside the mind of a murderer with all his inner thoughts and actions.

 

 

Cecilia 8C

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After the killing of Duncan, there is still the silence and the darkness that creates suspense, but even the fact that the two of them are asking short questions with short replies adds to the suspense.  The sight of Macbeth's bloody hands after the killing alarms us and he is not capable of doing anything, so he stands there unable even to go and wash them.  He is still there with his hands all bloody when we hear a knocking.  This knocking adds to the suspense, because it's very early in the morning and it's unusual for someone to be knocking at the front gate so early.  We wonder who it could be and how this might affect the Macbeths.

The scene now starts to slow down.  We are feeling anxious and so are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.  The porter doesn't open the gate immediately and this keeps the atmosphere fraught with tension.  After what seems like a long time he finally opens the gate but then he begins talking, again for what seems a long time.  This slowing down of the action creates great suspense. 

The fact that Macbeth tells us that he killed the guards creates further tension because we are afraid that maybe now people will begin to suspect him.  An important part in the creation of suspense is given by dramatic irony.  There would be no suspense if we didn't know what was  going on, and who had committed the crime.

After the crime Macbeth changes by seeming to become more and more strong.  He isn't afraid of killing the guards even though he had been terrified just a short time before when he went in to Duncan's chamber.  Lady Macbeth who seemed the stronger one, is now becoming weak and her fainting while hearing Macbeth's reasons for killing the guards makes us anxious about the way this scene is unfolding.  People start to suspect Macbeth.  First of all Macduff.  Others think that Malcolm and Donaldbain committed the crime, because they ran away soon after the discovery of the murder. 

In general people are horrified and afraid.  Malcolm and Donalbain, are afraid and they feel that they cannot trust anyone;

'Where we are,

There's daggers in men's smiles'. 

People are also scared by the darkness of the night.  The old man later describes some of the unnatural events which took place that night and says that he never saw animals acting so strangely.  He mentions the falcon killed by a mousing owl and Duncan's horses breaking their stalls and eating each other. 

 Myrlande  8C

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