Macbeth

• Critic D.J. Enright argues that Macbeth is a ‘long distance runner of evil’ compared to lady macbeths role as a ’sprinter’ . Unlike his wife, who succumbs to the mental burden of their crimes, macbeth endures a gradual desecent into madness addiitionally he isn’t consumed by a sinlge ,overwhelming episode but rather haunted persistedly by guilt through his reign
• ‘I heard a voice cry ‘sleep no more! macbeth odes murder sleep‘ (Act2)
• Motif of sleep :

  throughout the play, accommodate is a recurring motif that makes sleep synonymous innocence. Macbeth, troubled by guilt, experiences are disturbed sleep, symbolising his departure from a state of innocence.
• Exclamative sentance:


  The exclamatory sentence ‘sleep no more!’ emphasises the enduring and irreversible nature of Macbeth’s loss of sleep and innocence. His disruption of the natural order through his wickedness, mass by a side of moral piety, has condemned his mind to the relentless torment of guilt
• ‘I am in blood stepp’d in so far should I wade no more, returning were as tedious’(act3)
• Motif of blood :


  previously, the blood was meerly on his hands, yet now it has been enrobed his entire body and by extension, his entire sense of being
• Macbeth’s response to guilt has transitioned from being horrified to indulging further in heinous acts, murder now becomes his means of self-preservation
• ‘Wade’ biblical allusions:


  Macbeth metaphorical wading in blood exemplifies how he acknowledges his conscience is permanently stained with guilt as a result of his violence
• Similar to cane in the book of Genesis who commits the first murder in the Bible, his irreversible acts of murder of his brother Abel results in his punishment by God