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Macbeth's Nightmare

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“In Shakespeare’s day there were two views held concerning the nightmare. Some of the priests and most of the folk held that the disease was caused by evil spirits, either incubi or succubi, who [posess] the body at night since they are not able to prevail during the day” (118). Throughout the Elizabethan era, it was a common belief that nightmares were a type of illness that inflicted upon one’s sleep. These nightmares were a result of behavior that lacks good judgement. Spirits take over the body which instill a fear when one is supposed to be resting asleep. Macbeth suffers a living nightmare during the day and throughout the night because he cannot mask the shame for what he has committed. He is faced to defeat his demons and must fight …show more content…

He is immediately filled with guilt directly after he kills Duncan and hears, “a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!/ Macbeth does murder sleep’-the innocent sleep” (II.ii.47-48). Macbeth’s fear that he will never be able to sleep again because he killed the king demonstrates his feelings of madness. Sleep is a symbol of peace, however, after he murders Duncan, he views sleep in a negative connotation. However, after he murders Banquo, Macbeth is able to put his worries aside, “and sleep in spite of thunder” (IV.i. 97). After committing two murders he is suddenly able to sleep and is no longer paranoid revealing a shift in character. Since Macbeth is more ambitious and is not affected by killing someone, it can be foreshadowed that he will have more victims further into the play. Macbeth changes his perspective of sleep creating a suspenseful mood as the audience awaits for him to strike another …show more content…

She encourages Macbeth to sleep and hide what they have done by saying, “You lack the seasons of all natures, sleep” (III. Iv.173). Earlier in the play, Lady Macbeth was calm after the murder which exemplifies a difference in gender roles compared to Macbeth who was in agony. The way that they differ from each other is ironic because Macbeth should not be as flustered as Lady Macbeth since he is the man of the house. Later, just after Macduff’s family has been killed, a gentlewoman notifies the doctor about Lady Macbeth’s weird behavior and says, “You see her eyes are open/ Ay, but their senses are shut” (V.i.26-27). At this time, the roles have been reversed which illustrates that the guilt has finally interrupted her sleep, leading to her sleepwalking. Readers sense the tense mood and can predict that Lady Macbeth will reveal or confess the murder she helped carry out. Although Lady Macbeth was more controlled at first, she eventually breaks and can no longer handle the excessive guilt, resulting in her madness in the form of

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The murder of King Duncan is a vengeful act driven by Macbeth's desire to seize the throne and secure his position. As the play progresses, Macbeth's paranoia and guilt lead to further acts of violence, driven by a fear of revenge from those he has wronged. Both "Night" and "Macbeth" delve into the themes of violence and revenge, albeit in vastly different contexts. "Night" exposes the horrifying violence of the Holocaust, highlighting the inhumanity of individuals. "

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Macbeth and Lady Macbeth changed throughout the play and the way they acted. At one point they are doing and thanking one thing and later on they are thanking something completely different of what that started thanking. At the beginning of the play they wanted to kill the king they were happy to and had no problems. As the play progressed on they started to fill guilty and regretted what they did they had banco killed so he would not say anything because Macbeth thought that he know too much about what happened he had murders kill banco when he was going to a banquet. As the play went on they were felling guiltier and guiltier.

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English 12 2/27/2023 William Shakespeare's Macbeth is a tragic play that explores the themes of ambition, guilt, and the consequences of one's actions. The main character, Macbeth, is a tragic hero whose ambition leads him to commit heinous crimes, which ultimately lead to his downfall. Throughout the play, Macbeth attempts to control the future and bury the past in various ways, which ultimately contribute to his tragic fate. One way in which Macbeth tries to control the future is through his attempts to control the future is through his interaction with the witches and manipulation of the prophecies given to him by the three witches.

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In this manner, sleep in Macbeth is the epitome of the witches’ oxymoron “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”. Sleep has been demonstrated to be a necessity that serves as a respite from the turmoil of the day, yet it has been shown to be a method of placing oneself in mortal peril - or perhaps be a form of death itself. As the play progresses, sleep may not be a benefit to the receiver but a curse to the

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In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the motif of sleep, a natural process, to demonstrate how the unchecked ambition for unnatural objects cause a loss of innocence. This is evident in Lady Macbeth's confession of her sinful acts and Macbeth's state of mind after Duncan's death. The motif of sleep occurs in the form of sleep talking when Lady Macbeth relives the moments when she plotted the death of Duncan and Lady MacDuff in order to acquire the throne. After Lady Macbeth gets a note from Macbeth that describes the witch's prophecies, she plots Duncan's murder and tries to muster the courage to execute her plan.

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Macbeth himself starts to become scared of a lot of things, and Lady Macbeth is cruel and harasses him for it. At this point, Macbeth has had enough of his wife and starts leaving her out of his plans. For example, he did not tell her that he planned on murdering Banquo, Fleance, and Macduff’s whole family. He is most likely afraid of telling her anything any more. She is violent, remorseful, and acting out in her sleep.

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As he begins to panic he exclaims:“Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more / Macbeth does murder sleep'..... great nature's second course, / Chief nourisher in life's feast” (2.2.34-39). Macbeth is starting to understand the severity of the crime he just committed. Shakespere uses sleep as a metaphor for innocence because people are their true, vulnerable self while sleeping. Macbeth refers to sleep as “The death of each day's life,” which indicates that he believes in the after life.

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First performed in 1606, Macbeth is a well-known Shakespearean tragedy that focuses on rebellion, death, and supernatural forces. Macbeth, a tyrannical usurper, struggles with the chaos that ensues from his murder of King Duncan of Scotland. This theme of chaos in major in the play and the most common time for this chaos is at night. In this play, repetition is common due to its poetry-like structure. When characters repeat certain words, he or she hints at an event that has passed or one that is to come.

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As the play progresses, Macbeth’s unchecked ambitions get progressively more out of hand, as his murders progress. He kills his close friend, Banquo to prevent the potential threat of Banquo’s heirs claiming the throne. Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo and tells lady Macbeth that he’ll visit the witches again. Lady Macbeth says that he “[lacks]” “sleep” which is a necessity for “all nature” (3.4.173). He continues to lack sleep, showing that his guilt is continuous and that he’ll never be at peace as he’s unable to escape the actions that haunt him.

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Being guilty in driving Macbeth to his first murder, which leads to even more assassinations of other innocent people, she becomes psychologically damaged. While Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, she accidentally reveals her feelings about her family’s actions. Macbeth, being fearful of her sleepwalking, called on a doctor, who had said to the gentlewoman, “Unnatural deeds/ Do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minds/ To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets” (V.i.75-77).

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His easily impressionable nature causes him to not form his own thoughts, but rather listen to the words of Lady Macbeth and the three witches. At the point of this play the audience can note the change in Macbeth's character. Macbeth's first murder was a trying experience for him, however after the first murder; killing seemed to be the only solution to maintain his reign of the people of Scotland. Through this ambition Macbeth is able to organize these murders without a drop of remorse. This lack of remorse is his shrill that pushes him to continue with his evil conspiracies.

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She knows she must “look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t,” (I, v, 72-73) in order to help her husband commit the crime. Although she is holding her guilt to the side, Macbeth struggles to do this. Lady Macbeth chides her husband of his weakness, saying that she “would, while it was smiling in [her] face, have plucked [her] nipple from [a baby's] boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had [she] so sworn as [Macbeth has] done to [kill Duncan].” (I, vii, 61-64) In convincing herself that she is a cold blooded, and unfeeling killer, she believes she is able to commit murder without remorse, because she swore to do so.

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Sleep is one of the purest forms of altered consciousness however, traumatic experiences can impede one’s unconscious thoughts. Macbeth returns after killing Duncan and the guards, grief stricken and afraid. He tells his wife that sleep itself has been murdered and that nobody is immune his treachery (5.1.44). Macbeth’s crime is intensified by the act of murder being done at night and to sleeping rather than awake guards. The moment of guilt that Macbeth felt for his actions represents the hidden innocence behind the crimes.

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This debate between the pity found in Macbeth’s mental state and the fear he evokes through his actions continues as Macbeth becomes a vicious tyrant. Not only does he kill off more of those around him, including the family of MacDuff, all for the sake of proving his power over those around him, but he rains famine and tragedy across the land. Macbeth’s inhumane actions easily draw fear from the audience as it expresses how uncontrollable and deranged, he has become; Macbeth is truly far from the hero first introduced. Extensively Macbeth begins to trust fewer and fewer individuals, he becomes more paranoid about the things going on around him. Specifically he can’t sleep and fears loosing his power.

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