ABSTRACT
The one essential thing about a tragedy is its shape. It is a progress, a development, a course. Lady Macbeth's attack was necessarily reduced to the most blatant vamping, the crudest scorn, but even these could not penetrate impervious material. With the whole action of the play as it were absorbed into Macbeth the other characters and the accessories were automatically reduced in importance. It is not until this moment that the full horror of Macbeth's actions bursts upon the audience. Duncan's murder takes place off stage, and out of sight out of mind; Banquo's we see, but it is a huddled affair in the dark. The third murder is in broad daylight, cold, deliberate, wanton, without any shadow of disguise or palliation. Sanity is here to redress the balance; the audience changes sides, and the tragic curve begins to dip towards its setting.
