Act 5: Characters

Scene Observations

Scene 1
The characters in this scene are Lady Macbeth, the Doctor of Physic, and the Gentlewoman. Both the Doctor and the Gentlewoman are introduced for the first time in this scene, while Lady Macbeth remains a recurring character. The lines between the characters in this scene seem to be equally divided among the three. The doctor and gentlewoman speak first before Lady Macbeth appears, and as she restates her previous murderous crimes while sleepwalking, both the doctor and gentlewoman’s lines become shorter as they’re attentively listening to what she has to say. The doctor later has a short monologue on what he has heard, reflecting his horrified emotions.

In this scene, Lady Macbeth has a very significant statement in which she says:
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” (28-32)
These few lines show how Lady Macbeth is not as strong as she appears to be in the first few acts of the play. In this scene, she starts to lose her sanity and sense of control; she starts sleepwalking in the castle and desperately tries to wash away the bloodstain on her hands, mirroring exactly what Macbeth said after his guilt of killing Duncan. This illustrates how Lady Macbeth is slowly turning insane like her husband in the beginning of the play. She is unable to cope with the guilt of murder, hence the sleeplessness and hallucinations.

Scene 2
The characters in this scene are Menteth, Cathness, Angus, Lenox, and the Soldiers. Both Menteth and Cathness (noblemen of Scotland) have not appeared before, and are introduced in this scene to help fight the battle against Macbeth. All noblemen have a relatively equal number of lines, though Cathness has slightly more dialogue than the others. All characters in this scene are part of the army, preparing to attack against Macbeth. They wait outside the castle of Dunisinane (Macbeth’s castle) to meet with the English forces.

Angus:
“Now does he feel/His secret murders sticking on his hands./Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach./Those he commands move only in command,/Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title/Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe/Upon a dwarfish thief.” (16-22)
The lines above refer to Macbeth and reflect the Scots’ perspective of him. Angus expresses his disapproval towards Macbeth by saying that rebels “revolt” against his “faith-breach”, his treachery, and that the throne does not fit him, it is too big for him-like a “dwarfish fish” trying to fit into a “giant’s robe”.

Scene 3
Characters that appear in this scene are Macbeth, a servant, the Doctor, and Seyton, being the only new character introduced, who is Macbeth’s trusted servant. Macbeth has the most lines in this scene as he commands the people in the room to get ready for all war preparations. The characters are distinctly characterized by social standing in this scene, as audiences can clearly see the way the servant, Seyton, and Doctor work under Macbeth’s commands.

Macbeth:
“The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!/Where got’st thou that goose look?” (14-17)
This line brings forth the idea of Macbeth’s transformation over the course of the play. He now criticizes other people for being ‘white with fear’, and for being cowardly. Ironically, Macbeth used to have expressions like those of the servant in the beginning of the play, yet he now curses the servant by asking the devil (Satan) to damn him the color black, the color of evil. I believe this reflects how Macbeth has become stronger and braver as a character in the play, showing he has the courage and fearlessness of fighting the battle with the English.

Scene 4
Characters in this scene are Malcolm, Siward, his son, Macduff, Menteth, Cathness, Angus, Lenox, Rosse, and soldiers. The large number of characters in this scene helps emphasize the strong opposing forces against Macbeth.

Malcolm:
“Let every soldier hew him down a bough/And bear ’t before him. Thereby shall we shadow/The numbers of our host and make discovery/Err in report of us./” (4-7)
These lines show Malcolm’s tactical wisdom as he tells every soldier to break off a branch and “bear’t before him” (hold it before him), that way Macbeth’s spies will make a mistake on the number of people in their army, since they’ll all be covered by trees. This suggests that Malcolm may be a more suitable King than Macbeth as he has the higher wisdom on understanding how to fight in war.

Scene 5
Characters that appear in this scene are Macbeth, Seyton, and the Soldiers (all recurring). Many incidents occur at this point in the play as Macbeth hears news that his wife has died, and that the Birnam woods appear to be moving towards Dunsinane, hence resulting in him having the most lines in this scene due to his terrified reaction toward these events.

After Macbeth hears of his wife’s death, he says: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, /And then is heard no more. It is a tale /Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, /Signifying nothing.” (24-28) This shows Macbeth’s love for his wife, as he seems to see no purpose and meaning in life without her existence. He sinks into despair and discouragement as evidently seen through this dialogue and in lines 49-52: “I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun,/And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.—/Ring the alarum-bell!—Blow, wind! Come, wrack!/At least we’ll die with harness on our back.”, where he wishes for the existence of the world to be destroyed as he’s growing tired of life.

Scene 6
Characters in this scene are Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, and their army. All characters are moving forward towards Macbeth castle, and the battle commences.

Malcolm:
“Now near enough. Your leafy screens throw down,/And show like those you are.—You, worthy uncle,/Shall, with my cousin, your right-noble son,/Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we/Shall take upon ’s what else remains to do,/According to our order.” (1-5)
This shows Malcolm already starting to take on the role of King-he orders the English soldiers to throw down their tree branches and to move forward. He has already drawn up a battle plan; he is completely ready for war, shown through his organized and prepared war tactic against the opposing forces.

Scene 7
This scene consists of Macbeth, Young Siward (Siward’s son), Macduff, Malcolm, and Old Siward.

From lines 2-3 Macbeth says: “What’s he/That was not born of woman? Such a one/Am I to fear, or none.” and later, “Thou wast born of woman./But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,/ Brandished by man that’s of a woman born.” (12-14). Macbeth’s constant mention of ‘the one who was not born of woman’ reveal he is still insecure and afraid of his death, despite having previously stated he wished for the world to come to an end, and destroyed (Act 5, Scene 5). Macbeth is still fully convinced that the witches’ prophecies will come true, showing he is one who really believes in fate and the occurrences of unnatural events.

Scene 8
Macbeth and Macduff generally have an equal amount of lines in this scene as they finally come face to face in the battlefield. Macbeth insists that Macduff cannot hurt him because of the witches’ prophecy, Macduff surprises him however, as he tells him he was not of woman born, but “from his mother’s womb/untimely ripped” (line 15).

Macbeth:
“Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,/For it hath cowed my better part of man!/And be these juggling fiends no more believed,/That palter with us in a double sense,/That keep the word of promise to our ear,/And break it to our hope. ” (16-21)
This dialogue of Macbeth reveals his gullible, over-trustful character. He fully believed the prophecies of the witches, never stopping to realize whether they could be true or false, or realistic at most (like the Birnam Woods moving to Dunsinane). He claims that the witches “palter with us in a double sense”, or equivocate, telling him ‘double truths’ without revealing the underlying reality.

Scene 9

The final scene of the play consists of Malcolm, Siward, and Rosse, along with the other thanes and soldiers.  Malcolm has the most lines in this scene as he finally triumphs with victory as King of Scotland. He makes all his thanes earls and ends the play by giving examples of what he would do as King, showing that he intends to rule well for his country.

Rosse:
“Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt./He only lived but till he was a man,/The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed/In the unshrinking station where he fought,/But like a man he died.” (5-8)
In this dialogue, Rosse tells Siward not to feel discouraged over his son’s death because he paid a soldier’s price (death) and fought with courage without backing down. This illustrates not only the character of Rosse, but of all characters in the play, the idea of manliness. One became a real man once they have fought in a war, and died an honorable death.

Act Analysis

The tragic aspect of the play is emphasized in the first scene of this act as audiences learn that Lady Macbeth has started sleepwalking within the castle. When Lady Macbeth appeared in the beginning of the play, she left an impression of a ruthless, strong, cold-blooded female, who had over-powering ambitions to murder King Duncan. However, in this last act, we find out that Lady Macbeth isn’t as strong as she perceives to be, as guilt later takes over her. She sleepwalks at night, having delusional visions of her murderous deeds.

Lady Macbeth:
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” (V, I, 28-32)”

This dialogue is extremely ironic as the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth seem to be reversed-it was Macbeth in the beginning of the play who claimed his hands would forever be stained with blood. He said rather than his hands being made clean by the ocean, it would turn the ocean red, to which Lady Macbeth responds, “A litter water clears us of this deed” (II, II, 66). This is ironic because in this end it is she who starts hallucinating the ‘damned spot’ of blood on her hands.
In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is also deprived of sleep after killing the King, claiming he can “Sleep no more!” (II, II, 40). Lady Macbeth’s act of sleepwalking ironically displays that she too, can no longer sleep, because all the guilt inside her has caused a “disease of the mind”. This shows that towards the end of the play, Lady Macbeth is slowly going into a state of paranoia, showing how she is unable to cope with the guilt of her crimes, ultimately leading herself to suicide.

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