Key Quote
“"Out, damned spot! Out, I say!"”
Lady Macbeth · Act 5, Scene 1
Focus: “damned”
Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene reveals the complete psychological collapse of a woman who once dismissed guilt as easily washed away — the blood she denied has consumed her mind.
Technique 1 — EXCLAMATORY IMPERATIVES / FRAGMENTED SYNTAX
The exclamatory (expressing strong emotion) imperatives (commands) — 'Out... Out' — reveal Lady Macbeth's desperate attempt to command away her guilt, as she once commanded Macbeth. But the fragmented syntax (broken sentence structure) contrasts sharply with her earlier eloquent manipulation, showing that guilt has shattered her linguistic control. The woman who wielded language as a weapon is now destroyed by its failure.
The word 'damned' carries both a physical curse ('cursed spot') and a theological (relating to religious belief) meaning — Lady Macbeth unconsciously acknowledges her own damnation. Shakespeare uses this double entendre (a word with two meanings) to collapse the physical and spiritual dimensions of her guilt.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
Lady Macbeth's regression is total: from the commanding strategist of Act 1 to the broken, sleepwalking figure of Act 5. Her trajectory is the play's most devastating character arc — the woman who said 'A little water clears us of this deed' is now tormented (suffering greatly) by the very blood she dismissed. This ironic reversal (when an outcome is the opposite of what was expected) demonstrates Shakespeare's moral architecture: guilt cannot be suppressed indefinitely.
Key Words
Technique 2 — PROSE (NOT VERSE) / DRAMATIC FORM
In this scene, Lady Macbeth speaks in prose rather than the blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) she uses elsewhere. In Shakespeare, high-status characters typically speak in verse; the switch to prose signals her psychological disintegration (mental breakdown). Her language has been demoted from poetry to fragmented, repetitive speech — mirroring her loss of control, status, and sanity.
The scene is observed by a Doctor and Gentlewoman, creating a dramatic frame — we watch them watching her. This layered observation transforms Lady Macbeth's private agony into a clinical spectacle (a medical display), emphasising her vulnerability and the helplessness of those around her. No one can help; the guilt is beyond medicine.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
WOMEN & MADNESS
In Jacobean society, female madness was often attributed to hysteria (a diagnosis blaming emotional disturbance on women's biology). Shakespeare subverts this: Lady Macbeth's breakdown is not biological but moral — it is caused by guilt, not gender. Yet the male observers (Doctor, attendants) are powerless to help, exposing the inadequacy (insufficiency) of patriarchal systems of care.
SLEEP & CONSCIENCE
Jacobeans believed sleep was a period of spiritual vulnerability when the conscience could speak freely. Lady Macbeth's somnambulism (sleepwalking) reveals truths her waking mind suppresses — linking to Macbeth's earlier 'Macbeth does murder sleep.' The Macbeths have destroyed the natural order of sleep and wakefulness alongside the political order.
Key Words
WOW — THE ABJECT (Kristeva)
Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection describes the horror we feel when confronted with the breakdown of boundaries — between self and other, clean and filthy, life and death. Lady Macbeth's obsessive handwashing enacts this horror: the blood (which should remain inside bodies) has crossed a boundary and now contaminates her permanently. The 'spot' is abject because it represents the collapse of the distinction between Lady Macbeth the respectable hostess and Lady Macbeth the murderer. Her psychological destruction occurs precisely because she cannot maintain the facade she once insisted upon — the gap between appearance and reality has closed, and what remains is pure, unmediated guilt. Shakespeare shows that the human psyche cannot indefinitely sustain the division between public performance and private truth.
Key Words