In the tragedy Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare during the English Renaissance, the tragic hero, Macbeth, constantly declines his level of morality until his fatality at the end of the play. Throughout the play, Macbeth is influenced by Lady Macbeth in addition to his tragic flaw, his ambition, leads him to his downfall. The classical tragedy is comprised of five acts, which follow a customary pattern: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. In the course of the play, the author uses sleep imagery to illustrate the characters of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Duncan. Since Shakespeare associates sleeplessness with malevolence and sleep with righteousness, then both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth must be malicious characters whereas Duncan must be a virtuous character.
             Macbeth is portrayed as a tragic hero who possesses many tragic flaws. He is the chief character throughout the play and because he murders Duncan he is paralyzed with sleeplessness. Shakespeare uses sleep imagery to provide the reader with an image of pain. Sleep is invoked literally in that Macbeth kills Duncan while he is sleeping and smears blood on the sleeping attendants, but also figuratively as Macbeth's guilty conscience will not allow him peaceful sleep: "Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep. Glamis hath murdered sleep and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more (II.ii.54-57)." Macbeth's trepidation was created by himself due to the predicament which he involved himself with and eventually it is this self-produced fear which eats Macbeth from the inside out. The result of this is that Macbeth cannot sleep because of the evil deed he has put upon himself. Macbeth's vivid imagination and his constant worries also provoke him: "...wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep (II.i.62-63)." This is evident in his terrible dreams which give the solid theme that Macbeth has indeed "m
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