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Macbeth
Guided Reading Notes
Act 2
II.i
“There’s husbandry in heaven,/Their candles are all out.” Alluding to Macbeth’s thoughts from Act I 
“Stars hide your fires, let not light see my deep and dark desires.”
At Macbeth’s Castle. Even though there is a party, everyone is still so tense. The party has lasted days.
- Banquo has been dreaming about the witches. Macbeth lies and says he hasn’t thought about them.
Macbeth says let’s discuss these witches when we have time.
- Macbeth tells the servant to go to sleep. He tells the servant that Lady Macbeth will ring a bell when
his nightcap is ready (he is setting up his alibi).
“Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.”
- Macbeth sees a dagger before him. He is hallucinating:
“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.”
ANALYSIS: He believes this dagger is leading him up to Duncan’s room. It is fated that he is doing this.
Everything in his life is leading him to do this. He thinks what he is seeing is real. The handle is facing
toward him insinuating that the dagger is inviting him/tempting him to use it. Conversely- If the
dagger was pointing towards him- this would be threatening.
If this is a battle between GOOD vs. EVIL- Macbeth would be choosing evil. He is moving toward the
point of no return; he can still go back!!
II.ii
- Lady Macbeth cannot screw this up. I would have killed Duncan myself, except he looked like my father
when he slept.
“Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t.”
ANALYSIS: Hypothetically- what if Duncan is Lady Macbeth’s uncle? Then her father and Duncan
would have been brothers. Brothers look alike. She could have been in the room, ready to kill him,
and it is very probable that he looked just like her brother, so she couldn’t have done this. This
explains the relationships during this time.
-The guards wake in their sleep and say “Amen”, which Macbeth cannot say back (he’s paranoid because
he can’t say it back). Lady Macbeth is trying to get him to focus and move on. Macbeth goes off the deep
end.
“Why did you bring these daggers from the place?”
ANALYSIS: Macbeth screwed up. He brought the daggers back with him, instead of leaving the murder
weapon at the scene of the crime. The plan always has to be screwed up somehow. Shakespeare did
this so that the audience thinks that Macbeth might get caught. Shakespeare is twisting out
expectations of how the people will be caught.
Symbolism/Imagery- Water for cleansing and absolution.
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather/ The
multitudinous seas incarnadine,/Making the green one red.”
ANALYSIS: All of the water in the ocean will not make my hands clean! In fact, if he used all of the
water from the oceans, the oceans would turn red. This tells us that he feels guilty about what he has
done.
- King Duncan is murdered.
- Lady Macbeth is unable to commit the murder because the King looks like her father sleeping.
Macbeth actually commits the murder and returns to Lady Macbeth with the murder weapons. Lady
Macbeth tells her husband to go back into the room and put the murder weapons back on the guards;
Macbeth cannot do this.
- Lady Macbeth returns the daggers to the room, smears the guards with blood. Lady Macbeth is framing
the guards.
Lady Macbeth believes this is so easy and the blood does not phase her. “A little water clears us of this
deed:”
*This act unites Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the deed. They both share the blame/blood. The act of
washing your hands, you are purifying yourself and cleansing yourself of bad deeds. The two
characters are forever connected in this moment now. Psychologically, Lady Macbeth entered a
murder scene and takes Duncan’s blood and wipes it on someone (analyze the brutality of this
circumstance).
Contrast how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel about the murder.
MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
from my hand, No…” (II.ii).
Meaning  even all the water in the ocean isn’t
enough to pardon our deed.
*Macbeth feels more remorse than his wife*
“A little water clears us of this deed” (II.ii).
meaning with a little water we can wash
away our actions…forget about the murder.
“I shame to wear a heart so white”  the heart
so white is her inability to kill.
II.iii
Comic relief The Porter (he takes all of the horror incorporated in this play and
twists it to comedic relief to ease the horror of the last scene). This is the only way
to balance the act of murder.
The Porter  The Gatekeeper (the doorman). He imagines he is in hell. For the
last few days, the castle ambience has been heaven. The King has just been
murdered, so the castle could now be perceived as hell.
~ATMOSPHERE~ : An unsettled night. “Some say the earth was feverish and
did shake” (An earthquake- the Elizabethans believed that the events of the world
were echoed by natural disasters/events).
Macduff-the hero of the story. Masterstroke of this play is that we are being
introduced to the hero (he will suffer immensely). As he fights Macbeth in the
end, we will not root for the hero. Shakespeare leaves the reader in a position
where we cannot root/connect for the hero (we are stuck in the middle). As the
witches stated: “What’s fair is foul; what’s foul is fair.”
Lennox- Nobleman/Messenger.
“Who could refrain,/That had a heart to love, and in that heart/Courage to make’s
love known?”
ANALYSIS- Macbeth walks into Duncan’s room and sees Duncan’s silver skin and
golden blood everywhere. Macbeth states that in his rage at that moment, he
killed the guards to show his love for Duncan and his desire for vengeance. He
asks, ‘how could I not kill them?’ He did this because he claims he loves the king
so much!
“FAIR IS FOUL AND FOUL IS FAIR”
“Why do we hold our tongues,/That most may claim this argument for
ours?/What should be spoken here,/Where our fate, hid in an auger-hole,/May
rush, and seize us? Let’s away;/Our tears are not yet brewed.”
ANALYSIS: Donalbain and Malcolm are feeling real emotions. These emotions are
taking a long time to kick in, therefore they look guilty.
“What will you do? Let’s not consort with them./To show an unfelt sorrow is an
office/Which the false man does easy. I’ll go to England.”
“To Ireland, I,: our separated fortune/ Shall keep us both the safer. Where we
are/ There’s daggers in men’s smiles; the near in blood,”
ANALYSIS: Let’s get out of here because it is dangerous. We are going to be
murdered next. Malcolm and Donalbain are sensing that something is not right.
Since we are next in line to the throne, we will be killed next.
II.iv
*Setting- it is supposed to be light out, but it is dark  a lot of treachery
happening in Scotland.
IMAGERY/METAPHOR: The King was killed by one of his own- this is not natural.
“On Tuesday last/A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place,/Was by a mousing owl
hawked at and killed.”
The two sons (Malcolm and Donalbain) have fled, so now they look suspicious and
guilty of murdering King Duncan. Since they have both left, Macbeth will be king.
~END OF ACT II~