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What examples of blood and sleep motifs are in act 2 of Macbeth?
Quick answer:
In Act 2 of Macbeth, blood symbolizes murder and guilt, particularly the regicide of King Duncan. Macbeth, overwhelmed by ambition, acknowledges his crime and its heavy burden. His guilt manifests in his belief that he will "sleep no more," as repeated in scene ii. He also imagines that no ocean can cleanse the blood from his hands, suggesting the depth of his guilt. These motifs of blood and sleeplessness underscore his psychological torment.
Blood is an image that permeates this play. Blood represents murder and guilt, in this instance the most guilty murder of them all, regicide or the murder of a king, God's anointed ruler.
Macbeth knows what he has done and doesn't flinch from accepting that he has murdered a good king: he knows his ambition is overwhelming. As he returns after killing Duncan, however, he reveals his highly distraught state of mind, his crime weighing heavily upon him. He speaks first of his guilt, represented by his awareness that he will never sleep easily again. In Act II, scene ii, he repeats, in various ways, that he will sleep no more:
Sleep no more! ... Macbeth does murder sleep ... Macbeth shall sleep no more.
Shortly thereafter, he speaks of blood, saying he has so much blood on his hands, that he is, in other words, so guilty, that all the oceans of the world can't wash his blood/guilt away. In fact, the blood on his hands would stain the green oceans red. As he says in his highly agitated state to his wife:
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather /The multitudous seas incardine,/Making the green one red.
Blood, sleeplessness and guilt will continue to wend their way through this play.
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