Macbeth Psychological Unrest Act One

Macbeth Psychological Unrest Act One

1. "My noble partner...seems rapt withal"/"Stay you imperfect speakers, tell me more"/"I burned in desire to question them further"

   • Weak, but it can be argued that due to Banquo being so rational about the witches, Macbeth being stunned to silence and then questioning them could imply that he is either already unstable or the witches have made him so but it could be that he is simply surprised and curious

2. "Unseam'd him from the nave to th'chaps and fix'd his head upon our battlements"

   • Again weak, but it can be said that Macbeth is mentally unstable due to his brutality, but at the time this was seen as brave and noble

3. "Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the topfull of direst cruelty"

   • Lady Macbeth actively wanting to become asexual and brutal via the supernatural would imply that she is not mentally sound, but it could be that she is deceptive to being in a patriarchel society thus she becomes sexless to be seen an equel to men
     • "I have given suck and know how tender tis to love the babe that milks me. I would while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums and dash'd the brians out had I sworn to this as you have"
       • Her violent discription of murdering a child also implies that she is not mentally sound, but perhaps it indicates that her grief of possibly losing a child is her motivator for wanting to murder Duncan and to become sexless

4. This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, why hath it given me earnest of success commencing in a truth. I am Thane of Cawdor. If good, while do I yeild in that suggestion, whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs against the use of nature?"

   • Macbeth's extreme conflicting attitudes towards murdering the king depict him as not being psychologically sound, but it could show a sense of morality