Sleep no more plot explained12/30/2023 He ponders imaginatively that his guilt for such an evil misdeed i.e. In Act 2 Scene II, Macbeth expresses the severity of his guilt in these sentences. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” It nourishes one with the strength to go on in life. Apart from death, sleep is Nature’s second route to do so. He describes the peaceful sleep as something which cares of one’s soul at the end of the day and puts balm over one’s tired mind. He believes to sleep well one needs a peaceful and innocent conscience, not one stricken with guilt. It is one of his hallucinations which comes to him under the pressure of his haunted conscience. Macbeth says this after murdering Duncan in Act 2 Scene II. “Methought I heard a voice cry “sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,” the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, the death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast.” She wishes to be filled with qualities like extreme cruelty which is needed to achieve what she intends to and the lack of which binds her to the femininity which comes from her sex. Lady Macbeth wishes otherwise and wants the evil spirit to take away her womanliness. It is a culture which predetermines women as kinder and non-violent. This dialogue by Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Scene V reveals to us the social position of women of in that age when this play was written. “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!” For Lady Macbeth, “ the nearest way” is to murder so that both of them can acquire power faster. She is rejoicing over the prophecy but she fears Macbeth’s kind nature because he is required to be violent in order to achieve kingship. It shows how well she knows her husband and his nature. Lady Macbeth says this in Act 1 Scene V after reading the letter sent to her by Macbeth.
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