Sleep, it is hard to live with it constantly robbing most people of about a third of their day, but it’s even harder to deal with the consequences of insomnia. We have all had a time where we couldn’t quite fall asleep one night, but for Macbeth this is a constant issue and in his waking hours he has to deal with this guilt that he has brought upon himself by murdering king Duncan. Insomnia causes a variety of problems in the victim to lose focus, impair social interactions, and other similar issues that ultimately hurt the victim or in Macbeth’s case he is the victim of his own decisions. Insomnia causes unimaginable issues for Macbeth in Macbeth; insomnia causes Macbeth to become isolated, to make thoughtless decisions and ultimately succumb to madness.
Due to Macbeth’s insomnia he becomes isolated from society. Macbeth’s isolation is demonstrated clearly in Macbeth after he murders Duncan and anxiously states, “still it cried “sleep no more!” To all the house Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more” (Shakespeare 2.2.40-42). This is the start of Macbeth’s issues because if he had never murdered Duncan, he could have avoided all the issues to come and immediately he feels picked out because a voice named him specifically and damned him to insomnia. This matters because Macbeth becomes so distraught over the murder of Duncan and almost like a deer in headlights, he is going to get hit because he’s unable to move, but he will not know when his misery will finally be over. “Shakespeare’s metaphor for sleep as the death of each day’s life had a deeper significance than first meets the eye.”(Delany 209) For Macbeth this means that the day that he murdered Duncan will not...
... middle of paper ...
...d until the late hours of the night. Macbeth is a true example of the complications of insomnia and shows that while most people hate sleep because it robs them of precious time it’s even harder to deal with the complications of insomnia.
Works Cited
Delaney, Bill. "Shakespeare's MACBETH." Explicator 63.4 (2005): 209-211. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 11 Feb. 2010.
Johnson, G. "`ON THE EDGE OF AN ABYSS': THE WRITER AS INSOMNIAC." Virginia Quarterly Review 66.4 (1990): 643-655. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 4 Feb. 2010.
Kinsella, Kate. Prentice Hall Literature Timeless Voices Timeless Themes: the British Tradition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002. 300-388. Print.
McIlvaine, Robert. "A SHAKESPEAREAN ECHO IN "THE TELL-TALE HEART." American Notes & Queries 15.3 (1976): 38.Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 5 Feb. 2010.
Macbeth is describing sleep as a wonderful thing. It gives you energy and nourishes you like food from a feast.
With the depression stage lady Macbeth went through that stage of bipolar really hit her hard. She was so down (from the movie lady Macbeth look very tired.) Lady Macbeth starts noticing all the wrong her and Macbeth was doing. So she stressed so much she slept walk, which brings on insomnia.
In this world a person is suffering from stress put on his shoulder. Due to the amount of stress, naturally a person cannot sleep with a mind empty of worries. Sometimes a person gets disconnected from God. The disconnection from God along with the increasing amount of stress and of lack of sleep could lead a person to depression and losing hope in life. In Macbeth, the leading character, Macbeth suffers the same symptoms with an over stressed person in real life. Moreover, these symptoms begin when Macbeth kills King Duncan. Therefore, after killing King Duncan Macbeth, the noble character, suffers from serious problems that lead him into losing the hope of living.
Macbeth’s capacity for suffering also leads him to be a tragic hero. Before the murder of Duncan, Macbeth has a personal moment of truth and thinks about what he is going to do. He imagines the dagger in his hand and thinks about the nightmares he will be invaded with. Macbeth is so obsessed with murder; he begins seeing things, and must be quiet and not wake anyone, for he would give himself away.
Towards the beginning of the play, Macbeth was told by three witches of his future as the Thane of Cawdor and as King of Scotland. Together, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth devised an evil plan to brutally murder King Duncan. In doing this, Macbeth was one step closer to his prophecy of being King coming true. Macbeth expressed guilt and second thoughts before he even did the deed, but after the murder is done is when his guilt really started to show. Immediately after, Macbeth heard voices saying “Macbeth shall sleep no more” (II.ii.22-43). The guilt would keep him awake forever and would continually eat away at him. He was so disgusted with himself that he couldn’t even put the daggers back at the scene of the crime (II.ii.51-53). Lady Macbeth, guilt free at the time, stepped in and did this for him. Guilt often causes people to lie, which is why Macbeth quickly reacted and killed the guards. Lady Macbeth attempted to cover for him and fainted as a distraction (II.iii.106). He couldn’t keep his thoughts straight and it ended ...
Macbeth’s royalness and self-confidence had made King Duncan believe in Macbeth to become a great leader one day. Duncan holds a great deal of amount of trust into Macbeth now. With Macbeth’s vaulting ambition, he has no choice now to kill Duncan and fulfill his ambition. Macbeth soon later kills Duncan with Duncan’s blood all over his hands. “Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house: Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.” (2.2.53-55). Macbeth has brought a great amount of guilt to himself. He feels that he will never sleep again because he destroyed
Macbeth is seen as a “valiant cousin, worthy gentleman” (I, ii, 24). He is a brave warrior who is well respected in his community, until the witches prophesied to him that he would one day be king (I, iii, 50). Macbeth interprets that he must act to fulfill the prophecy. He sends a letter to lady Macbeth asking what to do. She suggests that he should kill Duncan. Macbeth follows the plan and kills Duncan (II, ii, 15). Directly following the murder Macbeth can no longer say amen (II, iii, 31-33). Macbeth also hears a voice in his head say, “sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep”(II, ii, 35, 36). For the rest of the play Macbeth suffers from insomnia. When Macbeth pretends to be surprised by Duncan’s death he says, “ Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time, for, from this instant, there’s nothing serious in mortality. (II, iii, 92-95) he is saying that if he had died before he murdered Duncan he would have lived a great life, but now that he’s committed murder, life is just a game and nothing is important anymore. These are suicidal thoughts and show how his grip on reality has greatly slipped.
Macbeth feels a great deal of remorse after he has killed the king. He understands that he has committed a sin and will be punished. He is so terrified that he hears voices telling him:“ Macbeth does murder sleep, … , Macbeth shall sleep no more”(Act 2, Sc.2 p. 57). Macbeth is very upset with himself and wishes that he never killed Duncan. “To know my deed it were best not know myself.” When he hears strange knocking at the gate he wishes that it wakes up Duncan, “wake Duncan with thy knocking”, however it is too late (Act 2, Sc.3 p. 61).
After a long and hard battle, the Sergeant says to King Duncan, “For brave Macbeth,-well he deserves that name,- disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, which smok’d with bloody execution , like valour’s minion carv’d out his passage till he fac’d the slave;” (1.2.16) . This quote shows that Macbeth is viewed as a valiant soldier and a capable leader. However, it does not take long for the real Macbeth to be revealed- a blindly ambitious man, easily manipulated by the prospect of a higher status. His quest for power is what drives his insanity, and after having been deemed the Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth’s ambition can immediately be seen. In a soliloquy, Macbeth says, “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings; my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastica, shakes so my single state of man that function is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is but what is not” (1.3.140). Macbeth has just gained more power, and his immediate thought is of how to gain an even higher status as king. He imagines how to kill Duncan, and then is troubled by his thoughts, telling himself it is wrong. This inner struggle between Macbeth’s ambition and his hesitation to kill Duncan is the first sure sign of his mental deterioration. Although Macbeth does kill Duncan, he questions whether or not he should to do so, which is far different from how Macbeth feels about murder later in the play. Macbeth becomes king, and this power leads
... lost conscience. Soon deteriorated to nothing, and his killings are numerous. We know that at the beginning he saw three witches but we do not know if that could be Macbeth hallucinating, that he has been seeing things since then because he was that ambitious of a man. We may not know if it was real therefore I will name Macbeth charged for First degree murder because Macbeth's change from human to killer is his own doing. He allowed the evil that is within everyone to overwhelm him. His ambition and need for power put him through a transformation from hero to killer.
This theme is further verified by King Duncan's statement "There's no art/ To find the mind's construction in the face..." (Act 1, Scene 4, Lines 11-12) Although Macbeth has the semblance of the amicable and dutiful host, ("fair") he is secretly plotting Duncan's death ("foul"). Furthermore, Lady Macbeth's orchestration of the murder exemplifies the twisted atmosphere in Inverness. Both a woman and a host, she should be the model of grace and femininity. She is described, however, as a "fiendlike queen" (Act 5, Scene 6, Line 69) and exhibits a cold, calculating mentality. In addition, the very porter of Inverness likens the place to the dwelling of the devil Beelzebub. This implies that despite its "pleasant seat," (Act 1, Scene 6, Line 1) Inverness is a sinister and evil place. It is also interesting to note that Macbeth is unable to say a prayer to bless himself after murdering Duncan. It is strange and "foul" that he should think of religion after committing such an unholy act. The very sanction of sleep and repose is also attacked in Macbeth. What is normally considered a refreshing and necessary human activity is "murdered" by Macbeth after he commits his heinous crime. Neither Macbeth nor his wife is able to sleep after killing Duncan. Macbeth's lack of sleep makes him a brutal killer; Lady Macbeth begins to sleepwalk and inadvertently reveals the source of her distress through her nightly babble.
Remember the last time you had a dream that seemed so vivid, you revisited it to ponder over what it means? In both real life and fiction, dreams are often a cause of people learning something new or even a change of mind. By digging deeper and analyzing dreams, one will gain more knowledge about him or herself and the world. Shakespeare utilizes this concept of dreams and visions in his famous plays, especially Macbeth, the story of the downfall of a man named Macbeth, and his wife, Lady Macbeth. Summarizing their bad decisions and the devaluation of their mental states only scratches the surface when describing this noble, yet heartless and unfortunate, classic work of literature. The story teaches the reader about the effects of competitive
Macbeth is a well known, famous story by William Shakespeare which is about the tragedy of ambition and how it destroys Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Both are forever damned to a state of fearful awareness, and insomnia as a result of murdering King Duncan. This sets off an unstoppable chain of events which ends in Macbeth himself being killed and Lady Macbeth committing suicide. In the play the lack of sleep becomes fatal, as a result of the murder they committed, and the awareness is terrifying because of the continuous agony of recurring nightmares of their deeds.
Shakespeare, William, and John Crowther. No Fear Shakespeare: Macbeth. ed. New York: Spark Publishing, 2003. Print.
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's problem plays which have puzzled the critics all over the years. It is compact and full of significant scenes, and it has two important characters, Macbeth and his wife. It is a clear study of human nature, which I personally think Shakespeare had mastered. The final act opens with the sleepwalking scene and this scene is of great significance because it reveals the true nature of lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is one of the enigmatic characters. Once she is a woman made out of steel and suddenly she collapses; she returns to be a gentle wife. The sleepwalking scene also shows lady Macbeth as a complementary character to her husband.