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Benjamin Friel ds

Mr. McClain

English 10H

14 February 2019

The Conveyance of Sleep In Macbeth

We all need to sleep in order to survive. It provides us the strength to tackle the day ahead

of us and is something we all value. Although, the play Macbeth uses sleep to convey a

completely different meaning. Shakespeare employs sleep and the absence of sleep in Macbeth

to highlight the shifts in certain characters to communicate the adverse effects of intense guilt.

Guilt is expressed through powerful sleep imagery and the inner conflicts occurring within

characters like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Everyone endures guilt; it is a part of human nature.

However, certain characters in Macbeth continue to feel a heightened sense of guilt that largely

affects their everyday lives. In the play, guilt is mainly associated with the result of committing

murder and realizing what has been done.

At the beginning of the play, Shakespeare exercises sleep imagery to develop a contrast

between the guilty and innocent. As well as to help display the characters' thoughts. "Methought

I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!/Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep" (2.2.32-33).

Macbeth grows paranoid that he will not be able to sleep created by the guilt inside of him.

Shakespeare is beginning to develop the contrast between the ones who are innocent and guilty

in this scene. "Sore labour's bath" (2.2.35) shows how important sleep is to Macbeth, knowing

that he is frightened by insomnia. This quote also helps set a tone of fear because the characters'

deepest insecurities start to show. "There's husbandry in heaven;/Their candles are all out. Take
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thee that too./A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,/And yet I would not sleep: merciful

powers,/Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature/Gives way to in repose!" (2.1.4-9).

Banquo feels exhausted and cannot sleep. He feels that something is wrong and wishes not to

have nightmares while he sleeps. The inability to sleep is employed to show one's inner thoughts

as sleep deprivation can affect the psychological state, potentially causing one to express

personal feelings.

As the play progresses, Shakespeare uses sleep to show how a character's inner struggle

is caused by their lack of sleep, tearing them down mentally and physically. "But let the frame of

things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,/Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep" (3.2.17-22).

Macbeth feels he is not worthy of sleeping, which exercises sleep as something that should be

earned. He had not thought about the potential consequences when murdering Duncan.

Therefore, he lives in constant fear and guilt, not allowing himself to rest or eat. Macbeth

concludes that it is better to be dead like Duncan than to suffer such guilt that is set upon him.

Shakespeare is comparing sleep to guilt and shows how all actions have consequences that come

with them. "Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?"

(5.1.39-40). Lady Macbeth realizes while sleepwalking that she sees blood, a metaphor for guilt,

that she couldn't see earlier in the play. Shakespeare uses sleep to haunt the characters in

Macbeth, especially Lady Macbeth, to reveal the inner struggle. At the beginning of the play, she

is portrayed as strong and fearless in contrast to Macbeth, who is vulnerable and weak.

Nevertheless, Lady Macbeth's persona towards the reader changes when she speaks in her sleep

because it shows a weaker side of her character.

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As the play progresses further, Shakespeare allows sleep to become more familiar with

death rather than innocence and guilt. "His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate's summons/The

shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums" (3.2.41-43). Macbeth is speaking to Lady Macbeth

about the terrible deed that will occur at nightfall. In this quote, Shakespeare uses sleep imagery

to convey images of death and despair. Moreover, this produces a dark atmosphere in the play by

implementing supernatural beings. The supernatural being, in this case, is Hecate, the goddess of

witchcraft. "What's done cannot be undone" (5.1.63-64). Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking,

expressing her inner thoughts and emotions about the murder. She states that the murder has

already taken place, and there is no way to take it back. Lady Macbeth wishes she had not

murdered Duncan because of the new sense of guilt that she feels. This quote can be juxtaposed

to earlier in the play when she said, "what's done is done" (3.218-19), providing a much less

sympathetic tone.

In conclusion, sleep is used to restrict one's innocence and reveal inner struggle,

establishing a dark tone to the story. The motif sleep supports the central theme of guilt and how

powerful it can be. Shakespeare also allows sleep to become familiar with death and supernatural

occurrences. The play Macbeth also gives us a glimpse of Elizabethan and Jacobean culture

because it was written when assumptions about sleep symbolizing guilt and madness were

applied to everyday people. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are influenced by sleep more than any

character in the play. This is the case because the murders that they carried out affected their

mental state, ultimately affecting their sleeping patterns. The moral of the play Macbeth

illustrates that destruction transpires when ambition goes unchecked by one’s moral limitations.