Macbeth: Act II, Scene II

In Act 2 Scene 2, Shakespeare uses tension and dramatic interest to

illustrate how Macbeth, with Lady Macbeth influencing him to do so,

commits the murder of King Duncan, and the after effects.

Shakespeare's language helps create this theatrical picture in the

previous scene with Macbeth's soliloquy about the dark in the "black

night," and the evil he associates with it prepares the audience for

the murder scene. In this scene, the audience know what Macbeth is

doing is wrong and that he will suffer terrible consequences, but

there is something inside of everyone that either propels him on out

of fascination or wills him to stop. Shakespeare helps create this

feeling with the previous scene, which makes the right atmosphere.

When Lady Macbeth is on her own waiting at the beginning of the scene,

she is very tense. Shakespeare helps create this tension by making

Lady Macbeth's character completely on her own and waiting. She is

straining to hear anything, as she wants to hear if Macbeth has done

the deed and hesitant of it because he was so unsure about it before.

As she thinks that something has gone wrong tension is created because

we wonder what will happen next. Will they be caught or not? The

audience will want to know what happened so they will become involved

in the play and will look forward to learning what really did happen.

In the middle of Lady Macbeth's first speech there is an owl shriek.

This is a bird of the night and the "fatal bellman" that rang the bell

before execution. She refers this to Macbeth as he gives the "stern'st

good-night" to Duncan, as so did the bellman at a funeral. The owl is

a bird of prey because of its harsh sounds and its relation to murder:

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...ne because it was the best time for light,

while now there is electricity so light doesn't come of accustom to

us. For the audience then everything had to be explained in the drama

of the play, as there were no backgrounds or many props. This is the

main reason why Shakespeare has to extenuate in his language, to get

the image across to the audience so they could understand without the

surroundings what was going on.

Shakespeare crates tension and dramatic interest throughout this scene

and does it in a number of different ways through drama and language.

In my opinion he does it very well and gets the audience involved

within the play. During this we have seen how Lady Macbeth and Macbeth

react in different ways and learnt more about their characters. This

is the most important scene in the play and is done clearly and is

well explained.