Significance of Sleep Walking Scene in the

Play Macbeth

Sucheta Halder
CU Roll No. - 202031-11-0230
CU Registration No. - 031-1212-0264-20
LBC Roll No. - 20-BA-ENGA-0047

Words: 1073
ENGA CC4 Tutorial
04-07-2021
If the play were to be divided into two halves- of rising and falling actions, the sleepwalking scene
without any doubt would hold the most significant part of the second half. The famous sleepwalking
scene (Act V, Sc: 1) in ‘Macbeth’ is a masterpiece of dramatic art. Even though there is no hint of it in
Holinshed, the sleepwalking scene still stands as one of the first scenes which delve into the world of
psychological horror to grapple the interests of the audience; indeed a scene of high artistic value.

The beginning of the final act reveals the deteriorating mental state of Lady Macbeth. The
“Sleepwalking scene” reveals her true nature and thus stands as a scene of high importance. The
grandeur of the artistic talent which Shakespeare revealed was beyond describable words.

Act V, Scene 1 opens up with a dialogue exchange between the waiting-woman and the doctor. She
informs him of the stranger behavior she encounters every night. Subsequently, we find Lady
Macbeth walking in her sleep. She wanders with a candle in her hand. The gentlewoman informs that
candles are always lit by the bed according to her instructions. The doctor diagnoses ‘the walking and
other performances’ while asleep, the ‘slumber agitation’ as the manifestation of ‘a perturbation in
nature’.

Old memories crowd her mind and she utters incoherently the very words that she spoke to her
husband before the murder of Duncan. She cannot escape from the haunting memory of Duncan lying
in a pool of his own blood;

“Fie, my lord Fie! A soldier and afread? Then the horrible sight of Duncan lying in a pull of blood
ever haunts her like a nightmare! Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood
in him.”

The dramatic expression heightens when she starts smelling the stench of blood in her hands along
with the horrible sight of it. She tries to forget the ghastly details of the murders but it keeps coming
back along with the fear of “After-death”. The scene ends with Lady Macbeth hurriedly retreating to
bed after claiming to have heard sounds of knocking by the gate. Ironically, the bed could not give
peace to Macbeth; the bed cannot give peace to her. However, filled with consternation, she goes back
to bed.

Lady Macbeth is one of the most enigmatic, interesting, decisive characters in the play who is
powerful at the expense of her man to whom she is the closest and whom she helps to ruin (“Analysis
of Lady Macbeths Madness English Literature Essay”). With her quick wit and ambition to rise to
power, she incites her hesitant husband to kill King Duncan to win the throne. To achieve her goals,
she willingly suppressed her feminine nature and gained a powerful mind to execute the killing in
action. But soon she realized how futile her actions were in the end. Her bitter sense of
disappointment is worded powerfully through these expressions:

"Nought's had, all's spent, Where our desire is got without content; ' Tis safer to be that which we
destroy , Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy".

This scene is a wonderful representation of psychological artistry. “For the first and last time in
literature, sleep-walking is used with (such) great and dramatic effect. The scene with its ‘subdued,
whispered’ horror is the ‘topmost peak of all tragic conception.” Grierson rightfully states. The
horrors of the murders have put her body in a state of severe somnambulistic attacks.

“You see, her eyes are open./ Ay, but their senses shut.”
Various pathways twist down to Lady Macbeth's downfall; one of them is her vain greed to attain
power and dignity. Lady Macbeth is an ambitious personality and quite through the failure to be
understood, the madness begins. The ambition in her heart to rise to power and subdue the reign of
patriarchy had infected her mind, which led her to struggle to rise to a powerful destiny. Of course,
she is aware of the fact that she is unable to achieve it alone, so she stoops to shame her man. She
says:

“What beast was’t then / That made you break this enterprise to me? / When you durst do it, then you
were a man;/ And to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man”

(Act: I, Sc- vii).

She strives to fulfil her aim, taking advantage of her husband’s love and twisting it enough to write
her own fate. Thus King Duncan is killed.

We are introduced to a series of complexes and groups of suppressed ideas which find light in her
somnambulism. The acting out of these complexes themselves is based upon reminiscences of her
past repressed experiences (“The Hysteria of Lady Macbeth - an Analysis of the Sleepwalking
Scene”). The first complex is related to Duncan's murder. Unconsciously Lady Macbeth keeps
reminiscing the actions and the comments of the night king Duncan was killed;

“A little water clears us of this deed: How easy is it then!”

Her madness is revealed as she seems to be in a midst of a rerun of the conversation with her absent
husband. She claims the blood wouldn’t leave her hands so she washes them again and again.

The second complex seems to be the reference to the murder of Banquo.

“I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out of his grave” which stands as proof that
she is no longer hiding behind the veil of lie and innocence. Therefore a vivid and widespread
panorama of all her crimes has been revealed in the whole scene.

As we reread the sleepwalking scene we discover the dramatist using Lady Macbeth’s deteriorating
health to actually shed light on the tragics of somnambulism; way before Sigmund Freud walked in on
the picture. The significance of the sleepwalking scene has been heightened with descriptions of

1. Repeated episodes of terrifying scenes

2. Struggle to hold onto her husband and prevention of the betrayal, and
3. The constant fight between her femininity and foul deeds.
4. The fear of “after death”

Shakespeare grapples with the readers’ attention by introducing the deteriorated mental health of Lady
Macbeth in a magnanimous light. Her uncoordinated flashbacks leaked her wild imaginations and
fears which resulted in a series of delirious sleepwalking episodes. The dramatist has no doubt
presented the tragic downfall with grand scale and the highest artistic talent.
Work Citations:
Literatureadda. “Write a Note on Dramatic Significance of the ‘Sleep Walking’ Scene in
Macbeth.” Literatureadda4.com, Blogger, 28 May 2020,
www.literatureadda4.com/2020/05/dramatic%20significance%20of%20the%20Sleep
%20Walking%20scene%20in%20Macbeth%20.html. Accessed 15 July 2021.

“Sigmund Freud and Macbeth | Literature Essays | EssaySauce.com Free Essay Examples for
Students.” ESSAY SAUCE, 16 July 2019, www.essaysauce.com/literature-essays/sigmund-
freud-and-macbeth /. Accessed 15 July 2021.

“Analysis of Lady Macbeths Madness English Literature Essay.” UKEssays.com,

www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/analysis-of-lady-macbeths-madness-english-
literature-essay.php . Accessed 15 July 2021.

“Sleep-Walking Scene in Macbeth: A Masterpiece of Dramatic

Art.” Ardhendude.blogspot.com, https://ardhendude.blogspot.com/2011/10/sleep-walking-
scene-in-macbeth.html. Accessed 15 July 2021.

“The Hysteria of Lady Macbeth - an Analysis of the Sleepwalking Scene.” Shakespeare-

Online.com, 2010, www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth/macbethsleepwalking.html.