Tuesday, November 25, 2014

What does the Doctor mean when he says of Lady Macbeth, "Therein the patient/ Must minister to himself" (5.3.45-46)?(Act 5 in Macbeth)

The doctor, here is giving an answer to Macbeth's
question. Macbeth had asked him if was not capable of addressing a sick mind. Is he only
capable of ministering physical sickness? Can he not come up with a calmative for the
sick and sorrowful mind? Can he not uproot from the horrifying passages of a
gulit-ridden memory, the cause of inner-grief, that seems to madden Lady
Macbeth?


It is in the form of an answer to this question
that the doctor says that in such cases of mental trouble, it is only self-ministering
or self-conducting or to use a modern Freudan term, 'self-analysis' is the only way to
go.


Most of the psychological problems can only be solved
by the patient and this is a psychoanalytic truth spoken by the doctor in Shakespeare.
The process does not lie in a removal of the symptom but rather an acknowledgment and
emptying out of it.

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