Free Macbeth Essays: The Value of Sleep

619 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Macbeth being complex

The Value of Sleep in Macbeth

I'm sure you know what it is like to not have a good night sleep for a day or two, or maybe even a whole week, but imagine not being able to sleep through the night for an entire year. Macbeth grows to know this feeling all too well in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Every time that Macbeth is involved in murdering his so-called friends, his waking hours grow longer and longer. He almost goes crazy the night that he kills King Duncan, and he can never get over this because he immediately has to kill again in order to protect himself Each of these killings causes Macbeth to sleep less and eventually leads to his insanity.

It all starts when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth agree that it will be the best for both of their futures if Macbeth sneaks into the king's chamber and slaughters the king in cold blood. Here, he gets just a small glimpse of what's to come. He begins to already hear voices in his head. They say to him, "Sleep no more: Macbeth does murder sleep," and "the innocent sleep . . . Macbeth shall sleep no more" (II.ii.38-46).And he does not really sleep much more after this night. Macbeth kills innocence when he kills the sleeping Duncan. There is no possible way that Duncan can defend himself. He is completely helpless and innocent, but Macbeth kills him anyhow.

Finally, there is no choice for Macbeth but to kill his best friend Banquo in order to destroy any thoughts that Macbeth is actually Duncan's murderer, Macbeth has lost countless amount of sleep due to his conscience. He can not even think straight. For him to even consider killing his friend is demented enough, but to follow through with his plans is completely insane. How can you kill the man you have told everything to, and who you have spent most of your fun times with. Macbeth shows even greater weakness when he claims to see Banquo's ghost at the dinner table the evening of the murder. He acts so insanely that his wife has to stand up and say, "Sit worthy friends. My lord is often thus, And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat" (III.iv.53-54). Macbeth's own wife has to stand up and lie for him because Macbeth has gotten so little sleep that he actually thinks this ghost is real, even though he knows that Banquo is dead.

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Guilt In Macbeth And The Social Network

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the play Macbeth, Macbeth and Banquo are good friends, and even after hearing the prophecy told by the Three Witches, they only laugh and joke about their individual prophecies. It is only after Macbeth kills Duncan that the thought of having to kill Banquo in order to secure his place and his bloodline on the throne ever crosses his mind. After killing Duncan, Macbeth was initially struck by grief and remorse, but when it came to killing Banquo, Macbeth had shown no real signs of guilt for it (there is even speculation that the third, secret hitman was actually Macbeth himself!). After killing Banquo, Macbeth had visions of Banquo as a ghost, but no real signs of grief as he had with Duncan. He seems more troubled over the fact that the murderers he had hired hadn’t been able to kill Banquo’s son, Fleance.

    Read More

  • Where Not To Base Your Faith: Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

    1413 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lathrop, G. P., ed. "Hawthorne, Nathaniel." The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. Binghamton, New York: Vail-Ballou, 1962. 439-40. Print.

    Read More

  • Free Macbeth Essays: The Importance of Guilt

    626 Words  | 2 Pages

    In order for Macbeth to be safe, it is to kill Banquo. Banquo may assume what had happened and tell the people of Scotland. "For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind; for them the gracious Duncan have I murdered; Put rancors in the vessel of my peace only for them, and mine eternal jewel".

    Read More

  • Nathaniel Hawthorne's Use of Words to Paint Images within the The Scarlet Letter and Hawthorne’s Political Career in the Salem Custom House

    771 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Nathaniel Hawthorne." American Studies @ The University of Virginia. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/lisle/dial/hawthorne.html

    Read More

  • Ambiguity of The Minister’s Black Veil

    3124 Words  | 7 Pages

    Waggoner, Hyatt H. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In Six American Novelists of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Richard Foster. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968.

    Read More

  • Free Macbeth Essays: The Role of Guilt

    922 Words  | 2 Pages

    It all began really in Act II, Scene II after the murder of Duncan, when Macbeth returns to his room to join his wife. As any person would be, Macbeth is very shaken by his wrong act. Killing a man, not to mention a beloved king is a sin and Macbeth knows it very well! He truly believes he has murdered all innocence, and only worse things will follow. Throughout the scene there are several quotes that show this; " Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more," and " Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red." This shows the amount of guilt he felt. He describes this by saying that if he tried to wash his hands in the river, it would turn into the colour of the blood itself. Lady Macbeth attempts to make him stronger, " A little water clears us of this deed: How easy it is then!" But the guilt he feels just does not go away…At least for the time being.

    Read More

  • The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey

    1524 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...e was also writing in Tudor England and seemed to have openly dislike Richard III. In other portions of his writing he describes Richard as an unattractive deformed man who was born with a full set of teeth. He writes that he had a “sour countenance , which seemed to savour of mischief, and utter evidently craft and deceit.”

    Read More

  • Macbeth's Corruption

    1293 Words  | 3 Pages

    After murdering Duncan, Macbeth feels that he needs to kill Banquo. He is afraid that Banquo is going to be a problem for him. He is suspicious that Banquo believes Macbeth had something to do with Duncan's murder, "Our fears in Banquo/ Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature/ Reigns that which would be feared" (3.1.47-49). He plans to kill him, though Banquo has made no direct threat against Macbeth. He speaks of feeling inferior to Banquo, even though he is king. "There is none but he/ Whose being I do fear; and under him/ My genius is rebuked" (3.1.53-55). Banquo is Macbeth's closest friend, he is starting to lose trust in everyone around him.

    Read More

  • Domestic Violence: A Cause of Homelessness in Women

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    Domestic violence, or battering, is the establishment of control and fear in a relationship through violence and other forms of abuse. The batterer uses acts of violence and a series of behaviors, including intimidation, threats, psychological abuse, a...

    Read More

  • Nathaniel Hawthorne's Literature During Early America

    1569 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Nathaniel Hawthorne- Biography." The European Graduate School. The European Graduate School EGS, 1997-2012. Web. 25 November 2013.

    Read More

  • Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Brief Biography

    1292 Words  | 3 Pages

    On July 4, 1804, an author by the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne was born (Meltzer). As Hawthorne grew, he began to develop a view of himself as “the obscurest man in American letters.” Through the use of popular themes such as isolation, guilt, and earthly imperfection, Hawthorne was able to involve much of his life and ancestral past in his work to answer his own political and religious wonders (“Nathaniel”). Hawthorne successfully “confronts reality rather than evading it” in many of his stories (Clendenning).

    Read More

  • Establishing Power, Control and Authority Through Domestic Violence

    1780 Words  | 4 Pages

    Domestic violence can affect anyone. Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior used to establish power and control over another through emotional attack, fear, and intimidation. Domestic violence or battering, often, includes the threat or use of violence; this violence is a crime. Battering occurs when one person believes he/she is entitled to control another. Domestic violence affects people in all social, economic, racial, religious, and ethnic groups; whether the couple is married, divorced, living together, or still dating. Another reality is that abusers and their victims can be gay, strait, young, or old. Violence develops from verbal, physical, emotional, financial, and sexual abuse. Most domestic violence victims are women by men, but that doesn’t suggest that others cannot be battered or are perpetrators of abuse -- such as women on men, or same sex abuse. Battering or domestic violence, is now mutual and it is not a ‘couple’s quarrel’. Disagreements arise occasionally in all relationships, but battering involves every aspect of a relationship. While physical violence is the “enforcer” or the criminal act, other behaviors erode the partner or victim’s sense of self, self-determination, and free will; this is ultimately lethal for many women.

    Read More

  • Domestic Violence: Why Do Women Stay?

    2769 Words  | 6 Pages

    It is common knowledge that Ray Rice used his wife as a punching bag in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino. What is truely remarkable is that his fiancé became his wife after that vicious left hook to the face left her unconscious. Why do women stay with men who beat them unconscious? Domestic violence is a serious and complex plague of society that affects all, but women make up the largest number of victims in most case studies. In the United States alone, '1.5 million women are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner each year. More than 500,000 women victims require medical treatment, and 324,000 victims are pregnant at the time of assault' (Berlinger, 'Taking' 42). Numbers like these show how intense the situation of domestic violence truly is. 'Two women a week are killed by a current or former partner and domestic violence accounts for 22% of all recorded violent crimes' (Jamil 70). Domestic violence takes such a large number in percentages regarding violent crimes, yet often is dismissed by many with the idea that 'this won't happen to me'. Somehow, somewhere, domestic violence will touch everyone whether by someone they know or by televised publication. Though domestic violence affects men as well, the female subject is more often the victim. Domestic violence has a continuous cycle that has been influenced since birth and can be stopped with intervention but each victim's reason for staying will vary.

    Read More

  • Macbeth Hallucinations Analysis

    1134 Words  | 3 Pages

    A combination of Macbeth’s ambition and paranoia lead to many senseless murders. He killed his best friend Banquo out of fear and he senselessly murdered Macduff’s family. The hallucination of Banquo’s ghost is a representation of Macbeth 's guilt, all of Macbeth’s guilt is manifested in the ghost. Macbeth states that he feels guilty because of the murders. “Ay, and since too, murders have been performed Too terrible for the ear.” (III, iv, 80-81) Seeing the ghost of Banquo is the breaking point for Macbeth. The ghost also causes him to think more irrationally which leads to the murder of Macduff. Also, after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth is full of regret and guilt. The voices he hears reflect his mental state. “Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more!” (II, ii, 35) His innocence was killed and he knows that he has to live with this guilt for the rest of his life, hence Macbeth will never sleep peacefully ever again. After each successive murder, Macbeth becomes more and more inhumane. “I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o 'er.” (III, iv, 143-145) Macbeth claims that after committing a murder, there is no turning back. He killed his best friend due to his ambition and fear. The third murder was outright moralless and unnecessary, he compulsively killed Macduff’s wife and children. Macbeth shows no remorse in his murders, he becomes an absolute monster towards the end of the play. As Macbeth loses his human morales, hallucinations appear to remind him of the sins he

    Read More

  • Theme Of Banquo's Relationship In Macbeth

    243 Words  | 1 Pages

    Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s bond continues to visibly weaken during the events of Banquo’s homicide. This is already seen in the second scene of the third act, where in the beginning of the scene, Lady Macbeth has to request an audience with Macbeth instead of simply going up to him herself to have a conversation, which shows that their relationship is at a point where they are not very familiar with each other anymore, but more formal and thus distant. Macbeth also decides not to confide in Lady Macbeth about his future murder plans anymore, as he refuses to tell her about his plans to murder Banquo, but only leaving her with the weak reassurance of, “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, / Till thou applaud the deed” (III.iii). Finally,

    Read More

More about Free Macbeth Essays: The Value of Sleep

Open Document