relating death to sleep

What comes to mind when one says the word sleep? Probably peace and recovery. The place you go to be sheltered from life’s battering ram. The thing you do to escape the wearisomeness of this life. Shakespeare turns this idea we have of sleep on its head. He uses lots of sleep imagery throughout Macbeth. Shakespeare uses it with Duncan’s death, he also compares beds to graves and all throughout the play Shakespeare finds and highlights commonalities between sleep and death. By putting all of these thing together and examining Shakespeare’s use of imagery one can determine that Shakespeare associates death with sleep in order to reinforce the not everything is what it seems theme.

Duncan’s death, which is one of the main events of the entire play and drives the plot for much of the story, is heavily associated with sleep. To top that, he is murdered in his sleep. Two quotes in particular exemplify this idea. The first is spoken by Macbeth right after he kills Duncan. “Sleep no more. Macbeth does murder sleep.” (45). this line does not mean that Macbeth literally murdered sleep. He killed Duncan who not only represents sleep but Duncan was also sleeping at the time of the murder. This reinforces the not everything is what it seems theme. The other quote that relates Duncan’s death to sleep is in Act III spoken with an envious tone by Macbeth yet again. He says, “In restless ecstasy Duncan is in his grave” (75). At first blush this quote is so confusing, what is restless ecstasy? In this quote Duncan is “sleeping” in his grave. But more importantly we see sleep and Duncan in a more positive light. Shakespeare is again reinforcing his not everything is what it seems theme because at first glance death may seem ba...

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...n’t hurt the living. They are just picture on the wall.” This line so ironic because of how Banquo comes back to haunt Macbeth later on in the play. With both of these quote Shakespeare is blurring the line between sleep and death by making them seem very similar throughout the play. He’s doing this to reinforce his them of not everything is what it seems.

The extent to which Shakespeare use the not everything is what it seems theme to encompass all the elements of his play is quite extensive. He does this especially with sleep imagery by associating it with death. What and odd pairing to begin with but by reading and analyzing the play it becomes obvious what his intent is. He’s teaching the reader to not take everything at face value and wouldn’t it be a better world if one looked beyond the surface and really truly examined things for what they are worth?