4.1.9
Women, Children & Sleep
Women and Children
Women and Children
Children are lineage: they continue the bloodline after death. A woman’s role was to give birth to children and feed them.
Significance of children
Significance of children
- Children are lineage: they continue the bloodline after death.
- They inherit and secure the family name.
- This is why Fleance becomes a threat to Macbeth. If he inherits the crown, as the witches predicted in Act 1, Scene 3, Macbeth’s family will lose it.
Lady Macbeth and a woman's role
Lady Macbeth and a woman's role
- A woman’s role was to give birth to children and feed them. It is the first thing that Lady Macbeth rejects when she tries to get the power to control her husband.
- She orders the spirits: ‘Come to my woman’s breasts / And take my milk for gall’. She will lose her femininity to become bitter and evil.
- Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth she would rather brutally murder her own baby than break a promise to him. She says this after he says he no longer wants to kill King Duncan: ‘I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums / And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn / As you have done to this’ (1,7).
Child spirits and Macduff's children
Child spirits and Macduff's children
- Two of the spirits appear to Macbeth as children (4,1). One represents a baby not born of women and one represents Malcolm. He is holding the branch of Birnam Wood, even though he is an adult.
- At the scene's end, Macbeth says he will murder Macduff’s, ‘wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls / That trace him in his line’ (4,2). By calling them ‘babes’, he makes the children sound more vulnerable.
- He plans to end ‘his line’, which is killing off anyone who would inherit from Macduff and continue his family name. This is done with the murder of Macduff’s son in the next scene.
Mother Scotland
Mother Scotland
- Scotland is like a mother to the thanes in the play, even though it now seems more like a grave to them (4,3).
Macduff's birth
Macduff's birth
- Macduff’s birth becomes the main anagnorisis (realisation) of the play: ‘Macduff was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d.’
- The language and structure here really emphasise the revelation. The line breaks after ‘womb’ to create a pause before ‘untimely ripp’d’.
- This verb phrase is savage, just as the moment in the play is horrendous for Macbeth. It means he can be killed (5,8).
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep seems to represent innocence.
Banquo
Banquo
- Banquo cannot sleep – he has nightmares after seeing the witches: ‘A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, / And yet I would not sleep; merciful powers, / Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature / Gives way to in repose’ (2,1).
- Banquo suffers just because he listens to the witches and because he wants the prophecy about him to come true.
- His lack of sleep could show that he is not innocent from supernatural influence anymore.
Duncan
Duncan
- After King Duncan’s murder, Macbeth believes he has murdered sleep: ‘Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more: / Macbeth does murder sleep’, the innocent sleep, / Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care, / The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, / Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, / Chief nourisher in life’s feast’ (2,2).
- The list of sleep’s qualities shows how valuable sleep is in life – it heals, nourishes and allows us to get rid of the stresses of the day before.
- Macbeth killed King Duncan in his sleep. This becomes symbolic of Macbeth killing his own peace. He will never rest soundly again.
Macbeth
Macbeth
- Macbeth seems to struggle to sleep after the murder of King Duncan: ‘Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep / In the affliction of these terrible dreams / That shake us nightly’ (3,2).
- After seeing Banquo’s ghost, Lady Macbeth tells him: ‘You lack the season of all natures, sleep’ (3,4).
- This suggests that lack of sleep has made him see things and act in an irrational (not reasonable) way.
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
- Lady Macbeth sleepwalks. This is a sign that she is possessed by evil spirits. The audience might see it is a symptom of her disturbed mind.
- The doctor says: ‘Unnatural deeds / Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds / To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. / More needs she the divine than the physician’ (5,1). Lady Macbeth is having disturbed sleep because of something that she has done.
- The doctor believes she needs God’s forgiveness – there is nothing that a doctor can do to cure her. Her sleepwalking is punishment.
- Again, her lack of sleep could suggest that she has lost her innocence and her goodness, and so is not rewarded with healing sleep.
1Literary & Cultural Context
2Plot Summary
3Characters
3.1Macbeth
3.2Lady Macbeth
3.3Other Characters
3.4Grade 9 - Key Characters
4Themes
4.1Themes
4.2Grade 9 - Themes
5Writer's Techniques
5.1Structure, Meter & Other Literary Techniques
Jump to other topics
1Literary & Cultural Context
2Plot Summary
3Characters
3.1Macbeth
3.2Lady Macbeth
3.3Other Characters
3.4Grade 9 - Key Characters
4Themes
4.1Themes
4.2Grade 9 - Themes
5Writer's Techniques
5.1Structure, Meter & Other Literary Techniques
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