Mark Twain once said that “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.” In, William Shakespeare's tragedy, Macbeth, the main character Macbeth, before killing King Duncan, convinces himself, through an illusion of a dagger, that his desire for the throne is worth killing for.
Macbeth's illusion of the dagger symbolizes his loss of sanity and reason, due to his prophesized kingship. When contemplating the bloody blade after killing King Duncan, Macbeth concludes that “It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half-world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep”(2.1.48-51). Macbeth, through this quote, demonstrates an understanding and willingness to kill King Duncan in his sleep.
Macbeth's illusion of the dagger symbolizes his loss of sanity and reason, due to his prophesized kingship. When contemplating the bloody blade after killing King Duncan, Macbeth concludes that “It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half-world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep”(2.1.48-51). Macbeth, through this quote, demonstrates an understanding and willingness to kill King Duncan in his sleep.