1. Shakespeare
Lane 448
Sleepwalking Scene
in
Macbeth
Fatima Amer Alsaiari

2. Sleepwalking :
is a sleep disorder belonging to the parasomnia family.
Sleepwalkers arise from the slow wave sleep stage in a state
of low consciousness and perform activities that are usually
performed during a state of full consciousness. These
activities can be as benign as sitting up in bed, walking to the
bathroom, and cleaning, or as hazardous as cooking, driving,
extremely violent gestures, grabbing at hallucinated objects,
or even homicide.

3. The Summary of the
Scene:
At night, in the king’s palace at Dunsinane,
a doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady
Macbeth’s strange habit of sleepwalking.
Suddenly, Lady Macbeth enters in a trance
with a candle in her hand. Bemoaning the
murders of Lady Macduff and Banquo, she
seems to see blood on her hands and
claims that nothing will ever wash it off.
She leaves, and the doctor and
gentlewoman marvel at her descent into
madness.

4. The Importance of
Sleepwalking Scene in
Macbeth:
• When the sleepwalking scene occurs, we haven't
seen Lady Macbeth on stage for awhile. When we last
saw her, it was clear that the relationship between her
and Macbeth was already beginning to unravel, and
this was her last appearance in the play.
• Shakespeare meant for audiences to be SHOCKED by
the extent of Lady Macbeth's degradation in the
sleepwalking scene.

5. Cont.
• Right after Macbeth killed Duncan, and had
the King's blood on his hands, Lady Macbeth
said: "A little water clears us of this deed."
When we see her in the sleepwalking scene, we
realize how very wrong she was.
• It is probably classified as famous because of
its dramatic affect. This scene has the power to
change ones opinion of Lady Macbeth.
•To show a character of Shakespearian women
who is very weak at the end even she pretends
to be a very strong at the beginning.

6. Analysis of Sleepwalking Scene:
Themes:
• Guilt
•Ghosts and Visions
•Darkness, Blood and Sleep.
Lady Macbeth's language:
is choppy, jumping from idea to idea as her state of mind changes.
Her sentences are short and unpolished, reflecting a mind too
disturbed to speak eloquently. Although she spoke in iambic
pentameter before, she now speaks in prose—thus falling from the
noble to the prosaic.

7. psychological perspective:
• Modern readers find the scene interesting because of the
dramatist’s psychological treatment of the consequence of
guilt, but for the contemporary audience the importance of
the scene must have had something to do with the divine
‘vengeance’ for the violation of the divine order, in which the
king on earth, represented the king in heaven.
• Lady Macbeth appears on the stage in her sleepwalking
with a light in her hand, and that is a case of phobia of
darkness.
•Light represents knowledge and knowledge means
clearance of phobia of the unknown; for Lady Macbeth it
arises out of her fear of persecution, out of the phobia of the
unknown divine retribution. All this had been residing in the
unconscious, but now her superego is operating so strongly
that it has caused turmoil in the entire psychic process. That
is why her words have lost coherence; but still the
audience/reader discern pattern in those words, which are
reflections on past misdeeds and their consequences.

8. Irony:
• At the beginning of the drama Lady
Macbeth had been the most
determined, the most cruel and the
most inhuman figure, but now in
sleepwalking scene, she emerges as the
most suffering, most disintegrated and
most human figure.
• Lady Macbeth was obsessed with
trying to wash the blood that she still
felt and smelt from her hands, a huge
change from Act II, Scene ii. She said,
“Out, damned stop! out I say!” and
continued with, “What, will these
hands ne’er be clean?”.

9. Does Lady Macbeth use soliloquy in
the sleepwalking scene?
Yes, because the two other people don't actually
converse with her.

10. What did the doctor see in the
sleepwalking scene of 'Macbeth'?
The doctor found a vantage point from which to witness
the strange behavior of Lady Macbeth. He witnessed her
requiring a lighted candle. He also witnessed her
sleepwalking. He even witnessed her rubbing her hands
as if to get rid of the stubborn spots from blood. And he
witnessed her talking to herself about the murders of
King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff's entire family and
household.

11. References:
• TTM's Guidance for Studying English Literature
http://freehelpstoenglishliterature.blogspot.com/2
007/09/sleep-walking-scene-in-shakespeares.html
• Irony in Macbeth by David Schlachter
http://www.davidschlachter.com/writings/macirony
.php
• Macbeth Study Guide
http://www.gradesaver.com/macbeth/study-guide
• Wikipedia
• Spakesnotes

12. Thank You