The Murder of Duncan
“Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?” (Act 2, Scene 1)
Just before the murder of Duncan, Macbeth delivers one of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquies. He sees a dagger floating in the air before him, leading him toward Duncan’s chamber. He questions whether it is real or “a dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.”
The hallucination is significant for several reasons. It shows Macbeth’s deteriorating mental state before the murder has even taken place. The dagger also symbolises the choice he faces: he can see the path to murder, but the weapon is intangible — he cannot physically grasp it, just as he cannot fully commit to the act without torturing himself.
The dagger soliloquy reveals Macbeth’s psychological fragmentation before the murder. The “dagger of the mind” shows that guilt and horror are already consuming him. Shakespeare leaves it ambiguous whether the dagger is a hallucination or a supernatural sign — this connects to the play’s wider theme of reality versus illusion.
The Murder Scene (Act 2, Scene 2)
Shakespeare makes the extraordinary decision not to show Duncan’s murder on stage. The killing happens offstage, and we experience it entirely through the Macbeths’ reactions. This is a deliberate structural choice: the horror is in their psychological response, not in the physical act of violence.
Macbeth returns from Duncan’s chamber carrying two bloodied daggers and in a state of shock. He tells Lady Macbeth that he heard a voice cry “Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep.” The personification of sleep as something that can be “murdered” is powerful. Sleep represents innocence, peace, and natural order. By killing Duncan, Macbeth has destroyed his own ability to find rest — a punishment that will haunt him for the rest of the play.
There are several reasons Shakespeare keeps Duncan’s murder offstage. First, Duncan is an anointed king — showing his murder would have been considered deeply offensive to a Jacobean audience that believed in the Divine Right of Kings. Second, the offstage murder forces the audience to focus on the psychological consequences rather than the physical violence.
Third, it maintains a degree of sympathy for Macbeth. We see his horror and guilt rather than watching him commit a cold-blooded act. This is important for the tragic structure: the audience needs to feel some pity for Macbeth even as they condemn him.
“Macbeth does murder sleep” personifies sleep as an innocent victim. Sleep represents the natural order, peace, and a clear conscience. Macbeth’s loss of sleep symbolises his permanent separation from innocence and normality — a punishment that begins immediately and never relents.
Blood Imagery and Guilt
After the murder, Macbeth stares at his bloodied hands and asks: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” He answers himself with a hyperbole: his hand would sooner turn the ocean red than be washed clean. The blood is no longer just physical — it represents guilt that can never be removed.
Lady Macbeth, by contrast, dismisses his fears: “A little water clears us of this deed.” Her confidence here is chilling, but Shakespeare is setting up dramatic irony. In Act 5, Lady Macbeth will obsessively wash her hands in her sleep, crying “Out, damned spot!” — the blood she dismissed so easily has become the very thing that destroys her sanity.
In Act 2, Macbeth is overwhelmed with guilt while Lady Macbeth remains calm and practical. She takes charge, returning the daggers to Duncan’s chamber and smearing the guards with blood. She mocks his fear: “My hands are of your colour, but I shame / To wear a heart so white.”
By Act 5, their positions are completely reversed. Macbeth has become numb to violence (“I have supped full with horrors”) while Lady Macbeth is destroyed by the guilt she once dismissed. This structural reversal is one of Shakespeare’s most powerful techniques in the play.
The Knocking at the Gate
Immediately after the murder, there is a knocking at the castle gate. This simple sound has enormous dramatic power. It breaks the intense, claustrophobic atmosphere of the murder scene and signals the return of the outside world — a world that does not yet know what has happened.
The Porter scene that follows (Act 2, Scene 3) provides dark comic relief as the drunken Porter imagines himself as the gatekeeper of Hell. His jokes about an “equivocator” — someone who lies by telling half-truths — connect to the play’s theme of deception. The irony is that the Porter is joking about Hell, not realising that Hell has already arrived in the form of Duncan’s murder.
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” (Act 2, Scene 1) — The hallucination reveals Macbeth’s fractured mental state.
“Macbeth does murder sleep” (Act 2, Scene 2) — Personification of sleep; Macbeth has destroyed his own peace forever.
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” (Act 2, Scene 2) — Hyperbole showing guilt that can never be removed.
“A little water clears us of this deed” (Act 2, Scene 2) — Lady Macbeth’s dismissal of guilt — dramatic irony given Act 5.