Examples Of Paranoia In Macbeth

In Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, the main character becomes responsible for numerous murders that leads to his mental state deteriorating. In the beginning, Macbeth was described as a loyal and virtuous nobleman; however, after he was told by three witches that he would become king, Macbeth decided to kill him, Duncan, in order to seize the label. Macbeth then started developing paranoia and insomnia, that got echoed through his other killings later on. Paranoia is the excessive delusions of persecution from others, or exaggerated self-importance that’ll ultimately lead to acts of violence in “self-defense.” Insomnia is the inability to fall or stay asleep. Anyone can experience a non complex form of each psychiatric disorder. One night …show more content…
When Macbeth committed his first murder in the play, while he was not in battle, he had an auditory hallucination that said “'Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep'” (2.2.33-34). Macbeth was crowned king by doing an unethical act. His subconscious created the hallucination to scare him into not sleeping in order for his brain to not be able to completely process of the plight that occurred. However, the irrationality that comes with insomnia made Macbeth’s brain not implicit the witches’ prophecy how he would normally have interpreted it. One of the prophecies were Macbeth would not have a descendant to the throne, but Banquo’s lineage will rule afterwards. He then plans to change fate and kill Banquo and his son. Macbeth hadn’t been accused with the murder of Duncan; he removed all the evidence that pointed to him, and the top suspects have fled the country. If Macbeth would have been able to relax and stop overthinking about his own demise, he would have been able to go to bed and start to get that he needed to focus on more dire issues, like the state of his kingdom. It has been proved that sleep deprivation causes anxiety and an abnormality of involvement: some of the leading causes of paranoia. In a study of Schizophrenia, both paranoia and insomnia were closely looked at and it stated that “insomnia interventions… have the added benefit of lessening paranoia” (Freeman, Pugh, Vorontsova, Southgate). …show more content…
The first time we see Macbeth developing the condition of paranoia was right after he killed Duncan in his sleep. His paranoia made him believe that he had to stop sleeping to protect his throne and to not end up like Duncan. He then manifests his paranoia into more violence to try and eliminate latent threats, and kills another person. The more paranoid Macbeth gets, the more reality gets distorted for him; “Thou canst not say I did it. / That, when the brains were out, the man would die, / And there an end. But now they rise again / With twenty mortal murders on their crowns / And push us from our stools. This is more strange / Than such a murder is” (3.4.50-83). Macbeth is now seeing the ghost of Banquo, whom he sent assassins to kill. His unbridled actions are now getting unmanageable for his brain to be able to compensate, and his hallucinations can now be comparable to dreams. Macbeth was able speak to the ghost and it vanished a couple of times, meaning he somewhat confronted his actions. Although, without sleep, perturbed things can become “‘a greatly reduced emotional reaction’” (Taylor), a result from a study on how sleep affects the reaction of disturbing photos. Two groups were shown a series of photos from crime scenes, etc., and 12 hours later, the same people were shown the same photos. One group slept between that