ENG1D8 I HUNT 1

Act Two

Identifying Devices

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 2

Act 2, Scene 1

References to the supernatural, darkness, and evil forces can be found in this scene (dramatic purpose).

1. How much of this uneasiness is in the minds of the characters, and how much is due to the intervention of supernatural or “unnatural” forces?

2. Are the witches abroad again, making mischief, or are Banquo and Macbeth struggling with their own internal demons? 2014-2015

ENG1D8 I HUNT 3

Act 2, Scene 1

“The moon is down…” (lines 1–5)

• Through Banquo and Fleance, we are told right away how black a night it is, with no moon and few stars shining. (Shakespeare had to rely on language to create imagery and tell the audience how dark it was.)

• Is there another purpose? Look back to Act 1, Scene 4, and notice the imagery Macbeth uses in his aside (lines 48–53). What connection can you see and what does it suggest is about to happen?

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 4

Act 2, Scene 1

“Merciful powers, Restrain in me the cursed thoughts…” (lines 7–9)

• Darkness and sleeplessness are motifs that run throughout the play.

• Banquo also personifies merciful powers in lines 7-9 (apostrophe - the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present).

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 5

Act 2, Scene 2

• Nocturnal animals dominate Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s imaginations as metaphors: for example, the owl (line 3) and crickets (line 15).

“I think not of them” (line 21)

• Banquo admits he’s had bad dreams about the witches, but Macbeth insists that he hasn’t been thinking about them at all—which we know is a lie (dramatic irony).

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 6

Act 2, Scene 1

• Try reading Macbeth’s soliloquy (lines 33–64) out loud. Don’t worry about understanding every single word to start with, but notice how often he refers to blood (visual imagery), violence, and the supernatural. Try emphasizing those words as you read.

• Also see the allusion to the Greek goddess Hecate in line 52.

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 7

Act 2, Scene 1

• An allusion to a Roman tyrant appears in line 55: “With Tarquin’s ravishing strides”

“My hands are of your colour but I shame /to wear a heart so white ” (lines 68-69)

• Lady Macbeth is talking to Macbeth; white here symbolizes a colourless or bloodless heart.

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 8

Act 2, Scene 2

• “It was the owl (symbolism) that shriek’d, the fatal bellman (metaphor) / Which gives the stern’st good-night” (lines 3-4)

“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more’...” (lines 38–46)

• The motif of sleeplessness re-emerges.

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 9

Act 2, Scene 2

• “Sleep that knits up (personification) the ravell’d sleeve of care” (line 40).

• Repetition can also be seen in the several references to knocking which build suspense or tension, beginning at line 61.

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 10

Act 2, Scene 2

• He talks about his hand, not himself, as the murderer (metonymy) in lines 58-61.

• Sleep becomes “great nature’s second [main] course” to the sleep-deprived Macbeth (metaphor).

• Macbeth’s hand is so bloody it will “incarnadine” the oceans (hyperbole), foreshadowing his future metaphor of wading across an ocean of blood (line 62).

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 11

Act 2, Scene 2

“A little water clears us of this deed.” (line 70)

• Make note of this line: It will prove to be one of the most ironic lines in the play.

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 12

Act 2, Scene 3

• In this scene, news gets out that Duncan is dead. But only we, and the murderers themselves, know for sure who did the deed (dramatic irony).

• Watch how the Macbeths try to put on a show to deflect attention from their own guilt.

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 13

Act 2, Scene 3

The Discovery of the Murder (lines 38–142)

“The night has been unruly…” (lines 49–56)

• To the Elizabethans, killing the king was the equivalent of killing God’s representative on Earth (the Great Chain of Being or Divine Order).

• Order in nature was directly connected to human order. The disturbances in the weather would have been seen as the direct result of the disruption Macbeth has caused.

• What similarities and differences can you see between modern perspectives and the Elizabethan view?

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 14

Act 2, Scene 3

The Porter’s Monologue – Comic Relief

• After such a heavy scene, Shakespeare lightens the mood by introducing the drunken porter.

• Is this comic relief necessary at this point? Does it detract from the play or give the audience a chance to relax?

• Does the porter speak some hidden truths? When he cries, “Who’s there, i’th’name of Beelzebub?” (lines 3–4), what is he really saying to the arriving guests?

• How is his pretense of being the porter at the gates of Hell an ironic comment on what is about to happen?

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ENG1D8 I HUNT 15

Act 2, Scene 3

“Approach the chamber and destroy your sight /

With a new Gorgon” (lines 68-69)

• Allusion is used as Macduff references the Gorgon Medusa, a Greek mythological creature with snakes for hair who turns those who look at her to stone.

• We also see imagery in lines110-112 with the “murderers, / Steep’d in the colours of their trade” 2014-2015

ENG1D8 I HUNT 16

Act 2, Scene 4

• Shakespeare really emphasizes imagery in this scene. Be on the look out for more bird imagery, clothing imagery, paradoxes, and the use of pathetic fallacy, including when “Duncan’s horses […] Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out” (lines 14-16).

• We also see personification in line 7: “And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.”

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