LRJ 2: Death

“Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse/ the curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates/ Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered Murder,” (2.1, 51-53). This quote uses death in a comparison with nature, saying that it is like it right now perhaps because it is very still, or cold or dark and gloomy, this is up to the reader’s connotations of death. Withered murder makes the act of killing someone even more evil. “That death and nature do contend about them/ whether they live or die” (2.2, 7-8). This quote tells of how death and nature fight each other, as to say that death tries to claim people while nature tries to keep them living. This quote personifies death. “There’s one did laugh in ‘s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’” (2.2, 26). This shows how others react to murder and how they think it is bad. “’Sleep no more!/ Macbeth does murder sleep,’ the innocent sleep,/ Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,/ the death of each day’s lyfe,”(2.2, 39-42). This quote tells of how Macbeth metaphorically has murder sleep because of him murdering Duncan. The guilt from killing Duncan will rest on his conscience for a while making him unable to sleep. It also tells of how each day of life is already dead, or useless. “The sleeping and the dead/ are but as pictures” (2.2, 56). Death is compared to the sleeping saying they have the same qualities in this instance. “Strange screams of death,” (2.3, 56). In this line the word scream is important because people don’t usually scream about something good, it’s usually about something terrible and awful. “Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope” (2.3, 67). This calls murder sacrilegious therefore showing the reader that by committing murder one is destroying what is sacred. “Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,/ and look on death itself!” (2.3, 78). This is another instance of death being compared to sleep, sleep is death’s counterfeit because it isn’t death but they have similar qualities. “Renown and grace is dead;” ( 2.3, 96). Here Shakespeare uses dead to mean forgotten or no longer in use and describes things with it. “This murderous shaft that’s shot” (2.3, 143). An image is put into the reader’s mind of a deadly shaft of some kind flying through the air after ready this sentence. “Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed” (2.4, 13). This tells of a an owl being killed by a hawk, which is a bad thing. “Those that Macbeth hath slain” (2.4, 22). The word slain means to kill in a violent way, therefore this sentence brings more negative, dark connotations to Macbeth by saying that he has slain people.