Theme Of Sleep In Macbeth

American Writer, Dale Carnegie once said “If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying”. Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo took that quote to the next level. In William Shakespeares’s Macbeth, three witches draw Macbeth into a whirlwind of gore. Macbeth leaves a trail of dead bodies behind him as he is corrupted by the witches after they provide prophecies about his life and Banquo’s - Macbeth’s right-hand man. The murders he committed alongside Lady Macbeth, caused him to succumb to his guilt and leave him sleepless and aggravated. The murder of Duncan resulted in the killing of various characters due to his paranoia from sleepless nights. Sleep plays a crucial role in Macbeth, nightmares, hallucinations,

In Act 5 Scene 1, Lady Macbeth’s gentlewoman enters with a doctor by her side. The two watch as Lady Macbeth starts to walk around the castle as if she was awake, and talking to herself. She is then seen violently scrubbing at her hands, she feels furious about her guilt stating “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” (5.1.25-30). Lady Macbeth continues to hallucinate the dried blood of her victims coating her hands in red. The frequent sleepless nights have forced her to fully see the horror of her actions as she suffers from the loss of the serenity sleep possesses, her insomnia clouding her thoughts with regret and remorse. Her longing to finally feel the effects of sleep is demonstrated as she tells herself whilst in a sleepwalking state to quickly head to bed “To bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come. Give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone.—To bed, to bed, to bed!” (5.1.45-47). This indicates that she is very passionate about the idea of getting sleep. Sleep in Macbeth evidently has a positive effect on the character in the