YR 11 CREATING AND PRESENTING (POWER) A dying soliloquy for Lady Macbeth SCENE IV, II [Dunsinane.

Within Lady Macbeth s Chamber.] Lady Macbeth wakes to find that she has been sleepwalking. LADY MACBETH: Ay me! Cold stone underfoot; an irrefutable sign of my night s wandering. I wish for peace, and yet every wake I find here, on this stone floor, upon this unsteady balance. These bricks once held me strong- no more. Never more. What cruel craft has led us to this? Should I so believe it was of the witches, I d so believe in my sure perilour inevitable, prosperous hell. What smoke came not before, now surrounds my conscious guilt. What hell doth exist at our end doth exist in my heart. Glamis may sleep no more. Cawdor shall feel no more. Macbeth shall live no more, by Fife. My husband was tainted by my own fell purpose. There is no deed by which we may be redeemed No cheating potion by which we may be saved; Neither a thought in which we are alone, nor room in which we are sane. We see them all in each corner of every dark hall; each cell of our feverish, infected minds charged with dirge. They stare, their eyes unfaltering; their looks are daggers, aimed straight at our hearts. Whispers in my ears asseverate to me that a deed so strongly steeped in treachery and vice can only come so freely to a mind fed by great villainy. Like King Midas, our thirst for all is our downfall. Was it written in our stars to foster such an end? Were we born with this unnatural intent; or could it be that we were transported by our fell ambition? Heaven knows what is gone, yet only the weird sisters know why. What elixir had ensnared my thoughts that night? The witchcraft flowed swiftly and smoothly through my veins, and boiled in the heat of my ignited flesh. All that was needed to taint both our souls was a promise of more. The same evil was neither within Duncan, nor Banquo, nor Fife. Their hearts, I now see, were true candidates for that which we have taken. To know what we have done is to live in famine, to live in war, to live in torture. What are we now? A sleepless creature driven mad by deathly thoughts is one of the underground; it is time, now, for my return to t. These cold blocks on which I stand grow unstable; the raven cries for me. Lady Macbeth climbs up onto the edge of the balcony. The ghosts of Duncan, Banquo and Macduff s wife and child block her way back down, surrounding her. She turns to them. No deed by which we may be redeemed I know I cannot take back what is gone. I can pay only in blood. I bow now to you; my friend my king. A raven croaks. Lady Macbeth jumps from the tower.

WRITTEN EXPLANATION This is an imaginative piece written for the exploration of the theme of power. The particular areas of power I have chosen to focus on were corruption and guilt. Corruption is the reason for the murder in Macbeth, and therefore the reason for Lady Macbeth s guilt so the two must have been thought about before Lady Macbeth died. I have chosen to write this Soliloquy with a slight Shakespearian tint to allow for an easier mental incorporation into the play. For this reason, I also reference previous scenes and lines in the play, most notoriously the line in which Lady Macbeth says: the raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of King Duncan under my battlements. There is also a reference to a previous scene with the line What smoke came not before, now surrounds my conscious guilt . I quote, very briefly, an old poem by Edgar Allen Poe, with: Never more , and I compare the Macbeths foolish appetite for power to that of the fabled King Midas , of Greek mythology. The audience I am hoping to capture are people who have read Macbeth, which is why I did not use too much Elizabethan English, as they would notice my feeble grammar. I am hoping that this supplimentary scene can help the reader explore the ideas I have here exposed about corruption, guilt, and the Scottish Play . If not, I d be happy just entertaining someone with my version of what I had imagined Lady Macbeth s death to be like; and therefore the imaginative form was helpful in letting me convey completely fictitious and creative ideas. The fact that I was writing a scene from a play permitted me to use theatrical techniques; such as the croak of a raven and the appearance of ghosts. The form of a soliloquy is extremely helpful for the exploration of a plot, as it allows the audience to see into the mind of the character. In this way, the soliloquy allowed me to suggest lots of ideas for what Lady Macbeth was suffering from; and therefore convey my own thoughts about corruption, degeneration of sanity and our theme of power.