Sleeping the Vulnerability Away

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Recommended: Power in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

A lot of people usually get tired of hearing about Shakespeare and “blank verse” this, or “literary genius” that, but when one stops to actually evaluate it, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is more than just a tale about a power-hungry thane that kills to take the throne. As Shakespeare uses sleep imagery, characters who gain power become more and more vulnerable. When these characters fight for power, they become too vulnerable, and usually end up dying. Finally, as the characters struggle to remain strong throughout the play, sleep imagery begins to show the weaknesses the characters didn’t show otherwise. By examining Shakespeare’s use of sleep imagery, one can determine that all characters are vulnerable, even those who are most powerful.
As characters become more powerful throughout the play, they begin to become more vulnerable as well. This is shown through Lady Macbeth when she kills to become queen, and her ruthless acts come back to haunt her as she begins to sleepwalk and talk about her terrible deeds in her sleep: “Will these hands ne’er be clean?/ No more o’ that, my lord, no mor...

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