In Shakespeare's Macbeth, there seems to be a strange connection between the images of sleep and nature. The piece refers to the results of thwarted nature, and since sleep is the essentially natural function of every human being, it seems most appropriate to relay the theme. Macbeth, in his natural state, is an honorable member of the king's loyal court. By the time he is introduced, he is promoted to Thane of Cowdor because the former thane had betrayed the state of Scotland. After encountering the witches, Macbeth begins to consider rebellion against his natural state, but nature remains static until Macbeth murders King Duncan, while he sleeps. When “Lord Glamis had murdered sleep” (II. 2. 41), the downward spiral of nature changing its course is propelled. When Macbeth murders Duncan in his sleep, he murders sleep itself, the most natural thing in the world, thus causing a distortion of nature itself, both on a personal and cosmic level. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Witches themselves begin to think that nature is not what it seems. “Righteousness is fault, and fault is good” (I.1.12). Banquo notices their lack of naturalness. “You should be women, and yet your beards forbid me from interpreting that you are. » (I. 3. 45-47) When they disappear, Macbeth emphasizes that they are not natural. “And that which seemed corporeal, melted, like a breath in the wind.” (I. 3. 81) Macbeth is a natural warrior and has already distinguished himself as such. Yet with the introduction of the witches, Macbeth discovers something abnormal, beyond the scope of his familiarity, and begins to consider murder outside of war, something that is unnatural to him. “My thought, the murder of which is still only fantastic, so shakes my unique state as a man that its function is stifled by conjectures, and nothing is but what is not.” (I. 3. 139-142) Lady Macbeth tries to convince her husband of what it means to suppress natural emotions and keep one's promises. "I breastfed and I know how tender it is to love the baby who treats me. while he smiled in my face, I would have torn my nipple from his boneless gums and smashed his brains in, if I had sworn as you did (I.7.54-58) As Macbeth walks past Donalbain and Malcolm's room after murdering their father, he hears them muttering "Murder!" says “God bless us”, Macbeth is unable to respond “Amen” (II. 2. 23-29) Macbeth had killed before, as a soldier, but the personal murder he had just committed was an act against it. nature, and he was therefore incapable of participating in a natural act, such as prayer. This idea that Christianity is natural and everything that is unnatural is promulgated during the curse of witches as they prepare a spell. of cauldron. “Liver of a blasphemous Jew? "Turk's nose and Tartar lips, baby's finger strangled at birth, ditch delivered by a dull" (IV.1.26-31). Witches, however unnatural they may be, are capable of taking what is natural and successfully deny it. Macbeth himself, although introduced to the possibility of the natural becoming unnatural, does not witness it himself until he commits an act that goes to the against nature. unnatural. He kills Duncan in his sleep, in order to fulfill the prophecy entrusted to him by the unnatural witches Yet, by murdering sleep, he succeeds in murdering his own natural state. thus thwarting naturewhich surrounds it. “Macbeth will sleep no more!” (II. 2. 4) refers to the changes occurring both in Macbeth and in the cosmos. With the killing of the “anointed temple of the Lord” (II.3.69), nature has become wild. Lennox describes the unruly night. "Where we were, our chimneys were destroyed and, as they say, lamentations were heard in the air, strange cries of death and prophecies with terrible accents of disastrous combustion and confused new events hatched at the lamentable time. my young memory cannot correspond to one" (II. 3. 53-63). The old man, in describing his reaction to Ross, gives the sense that this important event has enormous implications on a cosmic level, not just for Macbeth. "Seventy I well remember the volume of time in which there seem to me terrible hours and strange things; but this painful night has flouted previous knowledge." (II. 4. 1-5). With this murder of sleep, nature as a whole has changed. The calm that once existed was also killed, as people no longer felt it. Relationships could unfold naturally. The ramifications ring true for Macbeth, on a personal level, as he attempts to get rid of anyone who is a potential enemy, continually returning to the witches to prophesy what is to come. Macbeth is initially a great warrior, but as events progress his nature changes, Macbeth continues to kill, but his murders become less courageous. He kills Duncan and the Chamberlains while they sleep and hires men to kill Banquo so he doesn't have to. do it himself. His nature begins to change as he changes his nature. Lady Macbeth, she who herself had preached to Macbeth to repress his nature and do as he had promised, is also subject to the consequences, as her sleeping habits become abnormal. “I saw her get up from her bed, throw her nightgown over her, open her cupboard, take out some paper, fold it, write on it, read it, then seal it, and go back to bed; and yet, all the while, in a most rapid sleep. " (V. 1, 3-7) She sleeps, but she has no rest. Her sleep has also been murdered. Macbeth succeeded in murdering sleep and thus changing nature. Macbeth had always thought that we could count on nature, without realizing that he himself, by opposing it, had proven the opposite The apparitions brought by the witches prophesied that "no one born of woman will harm Macbeth" (IV. . 1. 80-81) and that “Macbeth will never be defeated until the wood of Great Birnam and the high hill of Dunsinane come against him. " (IV. 1. 32-35) Macbeth is assured that he will be safe as long as nature takes its course. Yet Malcolm and Macduff, upon hearing of the murder of Macduff's family, seek revenge on Macbeth, and in variations of the original prophecies, Macduff's advancing troops camouflage themselves in the branches of Birnam Wood, and Macduff states that he was "untimely torn from his mother." murder led to the extinction of emotion, a quality inherent in human nature "Distress, familiar to my murderous thoughts, cannot set me off once." For him, life no longer has any meaning, it is only movement. hour on stage, then we hear no more: it's a story told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (V. 5, 23-28). So said Macbeth, who had been as promising a man as “Brave Macbeth.” (I. 2. 16) Macbeth, who once had.