Sunday 3 August 2014

What does Lady Macbeth say, and what does the doctor think about her condition?

The part of the play that your question is asking about is Act 5, Scene 1.  A gentlewoman has come to get a doctor in order to ask him to observe Lady Macbeth's new habit of sleepwalking.  Lady Macbeth walks around the castle at night trying to wash the blood off of her hands.  She says some of her most famous lines during her sleepwalking episodes.  


 All the perfumes of Arabia will not...

The part of the play that your question is asking about is Act 5, Scene 1.  A gentlewoman has come to get a doctor in order to ask him to observe Lady Macbeth's new habit of sleepwalking.  Lady Macbeth walks around the castle at night trying to wash the blood off of her hands.  She says some of her most famous lines during her sleepwalking episodes.  



 All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. 



and



Out, damned spot! Out, I say!



and



Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.



Her words and actions are Lady Macbeth's confession to some evil deed.  The doctor does admit that she might not be guilty of anything.  



This disease is beyond my medical skills. But I have known people who sleepwalked and weren’t guilty of anything.



The above line also indicates that the doctor wants nothing more to do with the situation.  He's looking for an out, and he claims that Lady Macbeth's condition is beyond his training.  The doctor believes that Lady Macbeth needs a priest for her problems more than she needs a medical doctor.  



More needs she the divine than the physician.


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