Sleep And Dreams In Shakespeare's Macbeth

Shakespeare uses sleep and dreams to portray people’s inner fears and contrasting sleep as a place where people are completely honest with themselves. Sleep prevents the characters from lying and also contrasts their ambitions to their guilt, thus exposing how Macbeth’s personality is relatable and shows flaws that everyone is subjugated to, evoking that guilt is an outcome of our own ambitions.

When the characters in Macbeth are asleep, they are faced with their inner fears and their desires, as sleep is the time when they are the most honest with themselves. The characters are incapable of lying to themselves and uncovers their real personalities. Previous to Macbeth killing King Duncan and trying to fulfill the prophecy, “A heavy summons

For example, the morning after Macbeth kills Duncan, a party arrives and pounds on the gate to speak with Duncan. They make such a noise that lady Macbeth describes it as “...a hideous trumpet [call]” that “parlay[s]/ the sleepers of the house” (2.3.57-58). She is aware that had the pounding on the door truly awakened them, they would have been asleep in bed, not in the king’s room daggers in hand. Therefore, sleep gives to Lady Macbeth and her husband the impression of true innocence. Upon “discovering” King Duncan’s corpse, Lady Macbeth begs the men surrounding her to, “Help [her]hence, ho!”(2.3.138), for she is fainting at the sight. Although fainting is normally not associated with sleep, it is a kind of sleep that lady Macbeth employs to further prove her inculpability. Her fainting paints the image of fresh shock and innocence, for she cannot be innocent of the deed yet knowing of it. Shakespeare's characters utilize sleep to paint a lie, for this situation the lie that Macbeth and Woman Macbeth are guiltless of Duncan's murder. subjects. Woman Macbeth has effectively controlled sleep, as she has figured out how to exhibit a lie and have it be viewed as