King Duncan, Malcolm, Banquo and some others enter Macbeth’s castle are greeted by lady Macbeth. She says “Your majesty loads our house: for those of old, and the late dignities heap’d up to them, we rest your hermits.” basically welcoming her guests into her home. As we learnt last scene, lady Macbeth would go to great lengths to make sure Macbeth is king, making her queen and thus fulfilling the prophecy. So as lady Macbeth is welcoming her guests into her home we know that she is conjuring up a plan to assassinate the king and so creating dramatic irony.
Raise your voice, open your mind, unlock your imagination
You’re doing a great job of keeping track of some of the key events, language effects and dramatic techniques in Macbeth so far. Great to see you note the dramatic irony in Act 1, Scene 6 – which otherwise feels rather empty as a scene.