In act 2 Macbeth is consumed by guilty feelings before and after he murders Duncan. He has a monologue before he kills the king where he is holding a knife and thinking about what he is about to do. He says "A dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppresed brain?" He is not sure about what he is to do and thinks that it is crazy of him to be doing so. After he kills the king he meets with his wife, and then he claims to hear voices, one says "Macbeth shall sleep no more." He is scared and confused and is unable to dress the corpses to cover his crime. His wife must do that for him. I think that all of this shows that Macbeth is not convinced that killing the king is right. So far it seems like we have seen him struggle with the idea of killing Duncan more than we have seen him desire the power of the king. It makes it appear that Lady Macbeth is the force that really pushes Macbeth to kill Duncan. It seems like she desires power more than Macbeth does and that if Macbeth had a different wife he might not be interested in killing the king.
I noticed a couple things that were confusing to me. The second line of act 2 is "The moon is down, I have not heard the clock." I had thought that clocks weren't invented until around the 1700's, so I do not understand what they mean by clock. Also later on two men talk of strange tidings on the night of Duncan's murder, such as an owl killing a falcon and two horses eating each other. The horses eating each other is especially strange and I was not sure about the way that it connected to the story. However with the witches and the prophecy involved in the story, the horses are probably connected to that dark magic aspect.
Colin, this is a nice start and I think your questions at the end of the post are interesting. I am pretty sure Macbeth is referencing the fact he has not heard a "cock" not a clock, but I could be wrong. As far as the horses eating each other, that is a reference to the fact that nature is out of sorts, that chaos is manifesting itself both in the castle and in nature. In the future I would like to see more of the latter paragraph style of analysis and questioning as opposed to the first paragraph, which was more concerned with the plot than doing any close reading of the text. Still, a great start.
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