It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
Act V, Scene 1
Context
The Gentlewoman describes to the Doctor Lady Macbeth's repeated hand-washing behavior during her sleepwalking episodes.
Analysis
The verb 'seem' is doing crucial work here: Lady Macbeth appears to wash her hands but is not actually doing so, just as she appeared innocent after the murder but was not. The Gentlewoman's phrasing inadvertently captures the play's central concern—the gap between seeming and being—while the precise time notation ('a quarter of an hour') gives her obsessive repetition a documented, clinical reality.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Shakespeare uses observers' language to reveal truths the speakers don't intend—the Gentlewoman's word 'seem' unintentionally diagnoses the same disease of appearance versus reality that destroyed Lady Macbeth in the first place.