Sunday, January 3, 2016

Macbeth feels guilty after the murder "macbeth hath murdered sleep" sleep symbolises innocence but what other analysis is there?

Sleep, or the lack of it, is a prevalent theme in
Shakespeare's Macbeth


As Kenneth
Muir points out in "Image and Symbol in Macbeth," found in
A Norton Critical Edition of the play (254-266), the first mention
of the theme of sleep in the play is made by the First
Witch:



Sleep
shall neither night nor day


Hang upon his penthouse lid.
(1.2.20-21)



She curses the
Master of a ship, because his wife slights her.  After Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
assassinate Duncan, they


readability="7">

...sleep


In the
affliction of these terrible dreams


That shake us
nightly;... (3.2.19-21)



In
contrast, King Duncan, once dead, "sleeps well"  (3.2.25).  And, says
Muir:



An
anonymous lord looks forward to the overthrow of the tyrant, when they will be able to
sleep in peace.  Because of 'a great perturbation in nature' [5.1.8.], Lady
Macbeth


is troubled with thick coming
fancies


That keep her from her rest.
[5.3.39-40]



But the key
passage concerning sleep is the one you ask about:


readability="22">

Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no
more!


Macbeth does murder sleep," the innocent
sleep,


Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of
care,


The death of each day's life, sore labor's
bath,


Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second
course,


Chief nourisher in life's feast--  (Act
2.2.38-43)



Thus, sleep
becomes insomnia, with the dead Duncan the only figure in the play capable of sleeping. 
Even the drunk, comic Porter's sleep is interrupted, once the deed of assassination is
done.  

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