Comparing Sleep In Macbeth 'And' A Midsummer Night's Dream

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In literature, sleeping characters have significant symbolic intimations. Sleep for many can serve as an escape from the world and the situations in which the characters find themselves, and in some cases, sleep may create the onset of death. Much of Shakespeare’s work capitalizes on the concept of sleep. Shakespeare implements sleep to create complexities and miscommunications that may add either dramatic tension or humor. Similarly, sleep allows for characters to be the most honest, especially when the individual they are speaking about is incapacitated. In terms of Shakespearean works, both Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream capitalize on sleep to demonstrate both what characters think of each other in an honest manner, but also to add …show more content…

However, more important than himself, Macbeth references how the entire province of Cawdor as well as those within the house will lack sleep as a result of the murder, which is an interesting, nationalistic parallel to employ in this moment. Sleep in this passage serves as an alternate state of knowing for the people within the house as well as Macbeth himself. In Macbeth’s case, the necessary healing process of sleep is torn, not allowing him to journey into an alternate state of knowing; what Macbeth views as his reality is all that he will be able to recognize. However, the guests in the house, who were asleep at the time of the murder, were asleep, blocking them from knowing the truth of the situation. Therefore, their alternate state of knowing placed a barrier between their understanding of the truth of the world. This alternate state of knowing ties into Knight’s analysis also because Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s hunger for power are interwoven with the atrocities of treason at the expense of those in the palace. The balance between the good life are clearly juxtaposed with the evils of the world, creating a never-ending nightmare that will haunt Macbeth for the rest of the play. Macbeth on the whole greatly encapsulates sleep as an alternate state of knowing, especially in what truth is revealed to whom and by

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