" I will drain him dry as hay / Sleep shall neither night nor day / Hang upon his penthouse lid / He shall live a man forbid" (I.iii.18-21). For the witches, the inability to sleep is symbolic of a tormented soul. The man who cannot sleep lives in chaos, night is day and day is night. To the characters in Macbeth sleep is the, "chief nourisher of life's feast" ( II.ii.37) without it one becomes mad. Characters invoke the word sleep as a symbol of order. But in the play sleep is also a complicated term because it represents a character's control over their lives. When characters cannot control their sleeping habits they have entered into a realm of chaos where the fire burns and the cauldron bubbles. Macbeth, his arms soaked in blood after murdering Duncan, turns to Lady Macbeth. Suprisingly, some of his first words to her are, "Macbeth does murder sleep--the innocent sleep / Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care" (II.ii.33-34) Duncan has destroyed him, is his recognition that he will no longer be able to sleep. Racked by guilt, Macbeth instantly recognizes that the order around him is turned upside down. Macbeth's rule of darkness for Scotland and inner turmoil for himself. Ross, speaking to an old man, describes Macbeth's Scotland by saying, "Is't night's predominance, or the days shame / That darkness does the face of earth entomb" ( II.iv.8-9). Macbeth like the owl both hunts and rules by the shadows of night; and like the owl he cannot sleep at night. He is a creature of chaos. Lady Macbeth's sleep is representative of the portrayal of a woman's place in the play Macbeth. As a woman, her guilty conscience makes her sleep. Her madness makes her benign. Lady Macbeth is the prototype of the madwoman in the attic who lives in a state of semi-sleep, mumbling to herself, and washing her hands. She poses no threat to anyone but herself. Her madness makes her less dangerous then when she was in control of her sens...
