one's king. By splitting his loyalty, Lady Macbeth exacerbates Macbeth's fears about his relationship to Duncan and to his words that already exist as seeds in his mind. Thus Lady Macbeth's insulting Macbeth reveals the same dysfunctional trends in Macbeth's mind as Macbeth's insulting the witches (and them praising him); these trends of self-hatred and self-doubt lead him to kill Duncan, and to his ultimate fall.Before the witches prophesied to Macbeth they vowed to whip up a storm and destroy the ship of a sailor. Interestingly the witches do not say that they want to murder the sailor. Instead, they plan to destroy his sleep, "I will drain him dry as hay / Sleep shall neither night nor day / Hang upon his penthouse lid / He shall live a man forbid" (1.3.17-20). For the witches, the inability to sleep is symbolic of a tormented soul. The man who can not sleep lives in chaos, night is day and day is night. To the characters in "Macbeth" sleep is the, "chief nourisher in life's feast" (2.2.37) 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 can't control their sleeping habits they have entered into the realm of chaos where the fire burn and cauldron bubble.Macbeth, his arms soaked in blood after murdering Duncan, turns to Lady Macbeth. Surprisingly, some of his first words to Lady Macbeth are, "Macbeth does murder sleep--the innocent sleep / Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care" (2.2.34-35). Macbeth's first admonition that his decision to murder 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 is of darkness for Scotland and inner turmoil for himself. Ross, speaking to an old man, describes Macbeth's Scotlan...
