From the very beginning of act two Shakespeare sets up a mysterious atmosphere. He does this mainly by use of light; Stage directions state that Fleance enters with a torch, already limiting his vision to the light of the torch and suggesting that there is an area of darkness around him in which anything could be happening, it introduces a fear of the unknown. He enters with Banquo and there is an uncertainty of what the time is; ‘I take ‘t’tis later, sir’ which as well as reinforcing the mystery of the night time and darkness it also shows that the characters are awake and restless instead of asleep; could this be mirroring an overall feel of the castle on this night? As an audience we known that Macbeth has just killed the king, however the characters in the play do not know that murder has been committed; as well as putting themselves in danger of running into a murderous Macbeth they are also putting Macbeth in danger of being caught, leaving the audience tense.
There is then a sinister and gothic atmosphere is created when we see Macbeth hallucinating later in this scene. I think it is important to remember when reading Macbeth that he has just come back from the unimaginable horrors of war; this could be an underlying force driving Macbeth’s insanity. He describes having a ‘dagger of the mind’ and a ‘heat-oppressed brain’ suggesting mental illness. Does this give the audience some leeway to sympathise for Macbeth? Does it set apart Macbeth from the evil Lady Macbeth? Insanity is used in other Shakespeare plays (e.g. King Lear) and is a classic gothic element. Again it is a fear of the unknown, there were so many elements (and still are) of mental health that are not yet understood and Shakespeare uses insanity in this play, and others, as a tool to create a tense and mysterious mood.
Dialogue between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is used in act two scene two to create an extremely panicked and anxious atmosphere; there is a section around line 20 when their conversation consists of one word exchanges such as ‘when?’ ‘now’ and ‘Ay.’ ‘Hark!’. This works by creating an anti-flow of speech, there are breaks between when the characters speak which could almost mimic a panting noise, giving a sense of adrenaline and terror. The lack of proper flowing speech in this section could be suggesting how traumatised the characters are by the events, as they are not able to speak properly. Shakespeare has used the dialogue between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to show a rise in anxiety and perhaps friction between the two characters.
We see Shakespeare use dramatic irony at the beginning of Act one, when the characters Banquo and Fleance know less than the audience by being unaware of the murder that has just occurred. He uses this again later in act two scene three when the murder of the king has been discovered and people do not know (or at least cannot be completely certain) that it was in fact Macbeth who has murdered the king. It is as if we as an audience are keeping the secret with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and we feel the tension when Macbeth lets slip ‘I did kill them’ when referring to the kings guards. We know along with Lady Macbeth that this was not part of the plan, why did Macbeth just let slip? The audience become engrossed with the pretence and secret and feel the tension that is felt by the couple in this moment in the play.
