ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Lady Macbeth has gone mad. Like her husband, she cannot find any rest, but she is suffering more clearly from a psychological disorder that causes her, as she sleepwalks, to recall fragments of the events of the murders of Duncan, Banquo, and Lady Macduff.

Detailed explanation-2: -What is Lady Macbeth’s mental state during the sleepwalking scene? Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking indicates that she has a guilty conscience and is slowly losing her mind. The fact that she is washing imaginary blood from her hands reveals that she feels guilty for participating in King Duncan’s murder.

Detailed explanation-3: -Lady Macbeth presents a nocturnal dissociative episode with an altered state of consciousness, in which traumatic memories return, as a possible manifestation of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Detailed explanation-4: -’Out, damned spot! ‘: Lady Macbeth is trying to wash imaginary blood from her hands. Even today, we talk metaphorically of those who are guilty of some terrible crime of having ‘blood on their hands’, and although Lady Macbeth’s hands are physically clean, they are figuratively stained with her guilt.

Detailed explanation-5: -Guilt haunts Macbeth, both as a ghost that he sees, as well as the heaviness on his conscious. He also is haunted by his killing of Banquo, a once trusted ally and friend, and is haunted by his ghost. Lady Macbeth’s guilt causes her to sleepwalk and be haunted by Duncan’s blood that she cannot ‘clean’ her hands of.