This disruption of nature – all beings needing sleep to function – implies their guilt is so great that they will ‘sleep no more’. Aptly enough, as this extract shows, The Divine Right of Kings promoted the idea that the king was in direct line to God and as such was one of the core elements of the ‘great chain of being’. Later in Act I, we see additional evidence of Lady Macbeth as villain. When Macbeth says he will ‘proceed no further in this business’ she uses her powers of persuasion – undermining his manliness and questioning his courage – to convince Macbeth that murder is the best course of action. It is Lady Macbeth who suggests duping the guards ‘with wine and wassail’, and she who takes the bloody daggers from Macbeth to plant them on the grooms. She shows no fear of the dead, claiming the ‘sleeping and the dead/Are but as pictures’. He is overwhelmed by guilt to the extent that his command of language is depleted. Here, sleep can be seen as a metaphor for a calm and quiet conscience, but sleep can also contain nightmares.

This scene comes after Macbeth has killed Duncan and he seems guilty straight away. He is hearing strange voices, which shows that he is upset. ‘Sleep no more!’ This shows that Macbeth is so guilty that he will never be able to sleep again. In fact, Macbeth appears to desire that the plan is delayed. He says ‘We will speak further’ suggesting that he is not entirely in agreement with Lady Macbeth at this point. He has committed a crime against his own conscience, nature and ultimately God. So, the voice he hears represents his conscience. Equally,

Revision Cards

York Notes’ Macbeth GCSE Study Notes and Revision Guide provides all the information you need to craft exam answers that will earn high marks, and will help you to gain a thorough understanding of key elements in William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, including the play’s plot, major characters, historical context and underlying themes. When he says ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefor Cawdor/Shall sleep no more’ he is talking about his titles that Duncan gave him. At the start of the play, Macbeth was Thane of Glamis and then Duncan gave him the title Thane of Cawdor as a reward for his efforts in the war. This was part of the witches’ prophecy that led to Macbeth killing Duncan. His two titles represent the old and new Macbeth and show that every part of him is guilty. Later in the play her character changes and by Act III Scene 2 we begin to see signs of her regret. When she says ‘naught’s had, all’s spent’ we are presented with a character whose excitement is waning with the disappointment of the outcome. Her language when speaking with Macbeth is less aggressive and more soothing. She says ‘Gentle my lord’ and whereas in earlier scenes she dominated the dialogue, her lines are fewer in this scene. Overall Shakespeare uses this scene to show Macbeth’s guilt very clearly and shows how the guilt will get worse for both of them later in the play. Her evil is further demonstrated by the way she gives directions to Macbeth. In ‘you shall put/This night’s great business into my dispatch’ the pronoun ‘my’ shows that she, not Macbeth, is responsible for this murderous plan.

Further manifestations of guilt occur during Act III Scene 4. Here, the appearance of Banquo’s ghost may be a product of Macbeth’s overactive imagination but it is certainly driven by the same forces that placed a floating dagger in front of him, and suggested accusing voices in the extract.Later, Macbeth will be troubled by ‘terrible dreams’ (III.2) and Lady Macbeth will take to sleepwalking. Later in the play Macbeth wishes he could sleep like Duncan and be at rest. He is not able to gain any sense of peace because of his actions. His guilt makes him afraid of his friend Banquo and he ends up having him killed as well. The fact that he sends murderers to find and kill Banquo suggests that Macbeth is not prepared to risk the guilt of killing another friend with his own hands. She then proceeds to advise Macbeth on how best to present himself. She accuses him of being too easy to read and says he must ‘look like the innocent flower,/But be the serpent under’t.’ This shows us that she is deceitful and that the audience sees her as a scheming Machiavellian character.

In Act III Scene 4 when the ghost of Banquo haunts Macbeth at the feast, Lady Macbeth plays the peacemaker, attempting to calm the ‘good peers’. Macbeth echoes her earlier challenge about being a man with ‘What man dare, I dare’. The repetition of ‘dare’ emphasises his determination and sheer determination and we see that he has now overtaken his wife in the role of the play’s main villain.This was the medieval idea that all creatures existed in a hierarchy, starting with God, descending through angels to monarchs, their subjects and so on. The only clue to her later guilt it is in her brief reflection in the extract that she would have killed Duncan herself ‘Had he not/Resembled my father as he slept’. Macbeth’s language in this extract is repetitious and unsettled. He uses the word ‘sleep’ seven times, emphasising his obsessive nature and the fixed state of his mind. In this scene Macbeth is visibly disturbed and distracted. In saying, ‘Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!”’ he suggests some sort of figure of conscience is speaking out, reminding him of his guilt at the moment he kills Duncan.