Interesting question. I believe everything Lady Macbeth
does in this act is a show or an act--including her "fainting"
spell.
Truly, she doesn't say very much in this scene.
Macbeth has fielded the first round of visitors and has actually seen the murder scene
for the first time (or so they all think). Lady Macbeth makes her appearance after she
supposedly hears the commotion and asks the cause of the
uproar.
What follows is one of my favorite moments in the
play: Macduff is a gentleman and is concerned for Lady M's sensitive, womanly nature.
He says,
"O gentle
lady,
'Tis not for you to hear what I can
speak:
The repetition, in a woman's
ear,
Would murder as it
fell."
What
delicious irony that he is trying to protect her from the very deed she committed--and
even uses the word murder. (Gotta love that Shakespeare!) Her
reaction is pretty melodramatic, given what we know of this woman's strong, almost manly
constitution:
"Woe,
alas!
What, in our
house?"
You can
almost see her fling her arm to her forehead as she throws these lines to whomever is
listening. Those who have been to see the gory scene have returned, and now there is
some information which Lady Macbeth has not heard--her husband has killed the guards in
a fit of rage.
Immediately after he explains his actions,
she faints. One of two things cause this incident, it seems to me. One, she is truly
distraught by this news and is fearful this will somehow interfere with their plans to
assume the throne. Two, she wants to divert attention from the incident and this is the
quickest way she can think to do that. The second option seems much more
likely.
What happens before this scene shows Lady M to have
a strong constitution. She is the instigator and goad for her more reluctant husband;
the only thing, in the end, which she cannot do is the actual murder. She sets the
stage and stages the scene to frame the culprits.
In the
scenes which follow, we see no faltering or weakness. Not until time has passed and
things in Scotland are falling apart do we see that "a little water" does NOT wash away
her guilt.
In Act II scene iii, then, it's probable
Macbeth's wife is simply trying to keep their ill-conceived plan in motion by creating a
diversion. It works for a time, of course; however, since the first suspicions about
Macbeth surface here, her fate is sealed in this scene. She just doesn't know it
yet.
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