Tuesday, March 15, 2016

How does Lady Macbeth react when Macbeth says he has seen Banquo's ghost in "Macbeth"?What similar things does she recall?

In Shakespeare's, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, when she is chastising Macbeth for what she sees as acting so stupidly and foolishly in front of their guests (and looking guilty, which she has repeatedly told him not to do), does refer to the bloody dagger Macbeth saw in his vision in Act 2.1, just before he assassinates Duncan:



O proper stuff! [Oh, nonsense!]


This is [like] the air-drawn dagger which you said


Led you to Duncan.  Oh, these flaws and starts,


Impostors to true fear, would well become


A woman's story at a winter's fire,


Authorized [validated] by her grandam.  Shame itself!


Why do you make such faces?  When all's done,


You look but on a stool [not on a ghost].  (Act 3.4.62-69)



The reader does not see Macbeth tell her about the dagger, but there are at least two explanations for this.  First and most likely, we can assume Macbeth tells her the night of the assassination or soon after.  After killing Duncan, Macbeth is out of control, obsessing over his inability to say "Amen" when he overhears someone praying, worrying about the blood on his hands, regretting what he has done.  It is not a stretch to assume he mentions the bloody dagger at some point to his wife.


Second, it's not really the kind of question that presents a problem in a work of art that is not realistic.  Macbeth is not realism.  If Lady Macbeth knows something and we don't know how she knows it, that isn't a problem.


Lady Macbeth tries to cover for her husband by lying and saying this is just an ailment he has had since childhood, then berates him as a coward.  In the process, she compares the fit he is throwing now to his seeing the bloody dagger.  We don't know when he tells her, but apparently he does, or, if not, this is an Elizabethan tragedy, not a modern work of realism.

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