Power Of Sleep In Macbeth

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Through sleep, we all restore our energy, but this not always the case. In Macbeth, Shakespeare exemplifies the power of sleep in many ways; he expresses it through weakness, and strength. He uses weakness to exemplify sleep by making his characters vulnerable by making them not aware of their surroundings. In Lady Macbeth’s case, she also did not realize her involuntary actions and talking while sleeping, because she would begin sleeping walking when she slept. Shakespeare uses strength to illustrate sleep by showing readers what would happen to characters in Macbeth if they didn’t sleep. For example, Macbeth starts to become powerful when he became king because he wasn't sleeping; he started getting rid of anything that got in the way of …show more content…
Shakespeare uses the vulnerably of his character lives through sleep to show that their mind must be reliable and aware of their surroundings in order to have power without it becoming corrupt. It all starts when the witches gave Macbeth some prophecies about him becoming the thane of Cawdor and the King, and then him telling his wife, Lady Macbeth, about it in a letter. According to Parris in his article “The Body Is with the King, But the King Is Not with the Body”, before Macbeth became the king we was weak and let his wife, Lady Macbeth, make his decisions for him. So when Lady Macbeth found out about the letter she immediately wanted Macbeth to take action by murdering the king. However, Macbeth was weak and fearful about killing his cousin, and his king. But Lady Macbeth, determined to get her way, convinced him by saying, “When you durst do it, then you were a man / And to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man (Mac.1. 7.49-51).” This shows that Lady Macbeth is trying to manipulate Macbeth by questioning his manhood and calling him a coward if he doesn’t kill Duncan. Macbeth cannot stand by this, so he goes on to kill the king while he sleeps. During the murder however, Macbeth swore he heard a voice tell him, “Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep"
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