Macbeth Acts 2-3

I enjoy this play much more than Piers Plowman and a lot of the other readings we have done. It is particularly interesting because Lady Macbeth is the most prominently featured woman in all of the books that we've read. She's kind of evil which is annoying, but it's a nice change. What's also interesting is that so far, there isn't a female foil to Lady Macbeth. In Piers Plowman, Mede was the evil whore while Holy Church was the complete opposite, the pure virgin. In this play, it's just Lady Macbeth. The only problem I have with Lady Macbeth is that she's super evil and pressures Macbeth into doing what she wants then calling him a coward when he hesitates, but she never does anything herself. She gets on Macbeth's back about hesitating to kill King Duncan, but then she says, "had he not resembled/My father as he slept, I had done't" (2.2.11-12),  meaning that she too couldn't bring herself to kill King Duncan for sentimental reasons. Seems kind of hypocritical to me, but okay. Even though she can't do it herself either, Lady Macbeth continues to attack Macbeth, saying, "My hands are of your color but I shame/to wear a heart so white," (2.2.64-65). It is very convenient for Lady Macbeth, because although it was her plan, she doesn't have any actual blood on her hands so she likely feels way less guilty. It was also ironic that Macduff says to Lady Macbeth, "O gentle lady,/'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:/The repetition, in a woman's ear,/Would murder as it fell" (2.3.58-61), because this whole thing was basically her plan. This kind of parallels Valley of Fear, in that Mrs. Douglas too was told that the murder was too much for her, a woman, to bear, but she was in on it the whole time.

Unlike some of the previous books we have read, excluding Piers Plowman, Macbeth doesn't seem like a classic "mystery" type story. We know that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are the ones who committed the murder. Macbeth, does, however, include mystery elements, such as the three witches. We're not sure where they came from or who they are, we just know that they seem to have a lot of power. They show up in fields and do weird things like dance around in circles, and the reader gets no insight as to what they actually are or what they can do. I guess another aspect of the mystery is whether or not they can actually be trusted; are the things they say true, or is it just a hoax? Another unexplainable aspect of the novel is Macbeth's hallucinations. After King Duncan is murdered, Macbeth starts talking to himself and he starts to hallucinates objects, such as a dagger. At this point of the book, it is unclear why he's starting to go crazy, but it's most likely to due his extreme guilt.