Now whether or not you believe in such things is irrelevant for the people in the days of Shakespeare, most notably King James I, did and so what was written was for an audience who would jump at such a comment. She calls them “Spirits” which usually means something from the deepest depths of hell itself. The first is that she wants something to come to her.

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,Īnd pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,Īnd take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,Īnd fill me from the crown to the toe top-full So, what is she asking? Here is the text for you…. Such is life in the English department in most High Schools and Academies across the country. The girls gather their lips together and there is a sharp intake of breath, usually, whereas the boys usually titter out loud, sometimes making some form of saucy comment.

It is one of those moments when we read this in class, from this teacher’s perspective, when 14 boys and 16 girls all give different responses to those words.

In this scene, a number of things happen but a lot of students do not fully grasp what Lady Macbeth is saying when she asks the spirits to come and “unsex her.” Like with any kind of analysis, there is a danger of just thinking literally, that she wants to have all her female sex taken from her.

How does mcbeth hold his drivers