In the excerpt below, Coriat, an American psychoanalyst, presents one of the first fully developed psychoanalytic treatments of a Shakespearean character. Lady Macbeth, he argues, suffers from "a typical case of hysteria," presented by Shakespeare with "remarkable insight" and culminating in the sleepwalking scene. Coriat states that Lady Macbeth's ambition to be queen, for which she helps murder Duncan, is but a sublimation of her true desire for a child. She thus represses her natural cowardice from her consciousness, he continues, but after the regicide her repressed emotions begin to "break through in dreams" and surface most fully in the sleepwalking scene. Coriat further asserts that, in her somnambulistic state, Lady Macbeth reveals a "condensed panorama" of her repressed crimes and that the compulsive act of washing her hands is "a compromise for self-reproach and repressed experiences." Lady Macbeth, he concludes, is subject to a relentless fate because she cannot free herself from the complexes of her repressed unconscious. Coriat further adds that the witches instigate "the unconscious wishes of the chief characters."
When we approach the problem of the somnambulism of Lady Macbeth, it must be remembered that the sleep-walking scene does not stand isolated and alone in the tragedy, but that it is the definite and logical evolution of LadyMacbeth's previous emotional experiences and complexes. In other words, she is not a criminal type or an ambitious woman, but the victim of a pathological mental dissociation arising upon an unstable, day-dreaming basis, and is due to the emotional shocks of her past experiences. Lady Macbeth is a typical case of hysteria; her ambition is merely a sublimation of a repressed sexual impulse, the desire for a child based upon the memory of a child long since dead.
In fact, an analysis of the sleep-walking scene demonstrates that it is neither genuine sleep nor the prickings of a guilty conscience, but a clear case of pathological somnambulism, a genuine disintegration of the personality. As such, it offers as wonderful and as complex a problem as Hamlet-probably more so, for Lady Macbeth's disease is clearly defined and admits of easier clinical demonstration. An analysis of the repressed emotional complexes in LadyMacbeth must of necessity illuminate the motives of the entire tragedy, such as the mental disease of Macbeth, his hallucinations and the symbolism represented by the three weird sisters....
Lady Macbeth first appears in the fifth scene of the first act, reading her husband's letter, which briefly described his meeting with the three weird sisters. Therefore, any ideas which might enter into the mind of Lady Macbeth, were due to hints contained in the letter betraying her husband's wishes, and were elaborated in a soliloquy which revealed the very rapture of ambition. This first soliloquy is remarkable, it is her first daydream of ambition, so strong and dominating, that she believes she possesses what she really does not possess-namely, bravery. It is this imaginary wish fulfillment to be queen which later causes the hysterical dissociation. As can be demonstrated later in the sleep-walking episode, this daydream of bravery was merely assumed, a mask for the realization of the sudden uprush of her ambition. The genuine underlying cowardice was suppressed.
Shakespeare's metaphor for sleep as "the death of each day's life" has a deeper significance than first meets the eye. He not only suggests that going to sleep is like dying but also takes it as axiomatic that each day resembles an entire lifetime in miniature. This is an even more intriguing concept than the extended metaphor that makes up his Sonnet #73, in which Shakespeare compares late middle-age to late fall or early winter. It is natural to feel that the stages of life, from childhood to old age, are like the passing seasons. Childhood is like spring, youth like summer, autumn like middle age, and winter like old age. It is also natural to feel intuitively that each day is like a lifetime; but only Shakespeare was capable of expressing this latter idea--with his characteristic succinctness, using six very ordinary words: "the death of each day's life."
Awakening in the morning is very much like being born. For a short, blessed time, the mind is as blank and pure as that of a newborn infant. Waking from "the innocent sleep" makes one feel temporarily innocent, no matter what sins of commission or omission may be on one's conscience. Then he becomes aware of himself and starts thinking about what he will do when he goes out to face the bedlam beyond that inscrutable door. This is like the child looking into the future. He may feel optimistic, thinking that his talents or good luck will make the coming day a successful one. Next, he gets up and goes about a daily routine, drinking coffee, eating breakfast, bathing, dressing, looking in the mirror, preparing to face the day. This is like the youth getting ready to enter the outside world. He is still sheltered from the turmoil that rages outside. Then he opens the door and enters the fray.
This is the biggest event of the day, confronting the outside world, and it is like leaving home and entering into the struggle for existence. The day consists of activities, obligations, errands, confrontations, getting and spending money, with perhaps a few moments of pleasure--and all of this is like the long period of active adulthood.
When the weary mortal returns home at night and bolts the door behind him, it is like entering into retirement. His energy is depleted. He puts on slippers, sits down, unwinds, reads a book, watches a mindless television program, or pursues some hobby. This is very much like the years of retirement, killing time, waiting to die. Finally, he gets back into bed and lies there waiting to fall asleep, often reflecting on the events of the day, as people inevitably reflect upon various events of their lives when they are old. And, at last, he falls asleep, which is the death of that day's life.
Shakespeare's metaphor also contains the implication that each day is the only day anyone can be sure of having. The Latin injunction carpe diem conveys the same idea. This present passing day may be the only day of one's life. All previous days are irretrievably gone, as if they never existed; and all future days may be vain expectations, like those checks that are "in the mail."
King Duncan had had a good day. According to Banquo, the king "[...] hath been in unusual pleasure [...] and shut up in measureless content" (2.1.16-20). Duncan left orders to be awakened early. He had many important matters to take care of on the morrow--or at least he thought he did. But his last good day was his last day on earth. His fate was foretold by Lady Macbeth's grim prediction when her henpecked husband told her that Duncan proposed to leave on the morrow: "O, never shall sun that morrow see!" (1.6.70-71).
Shakespeare's genius is best displayed in his ability to express things that everyone knows but no one has ever tried to express. Whereas Sonnet #73 is unremittingly melancholy, the thought that each individual day is like an entire lifetime is appropriately cheering because it reminds the reader that he has many lifetimes in a single life and is almost immortal because he dies and is resurrected over and over again. Every day is like a new life. If he feels defeated and depressed because of the setbacks of one day, tomorrow will bring a rebirth and another chance to look for whatever it is he imagines will bring happiness. In saying that sleep is the death of each day's life, Shakespeare puts the emphasis on life rather than on death.
Unfortunately for Macbeth, he has lost that immortality. A mysterious voice has told him that he is doomed to sleep no more because he has murdered the innocent sleep, surely one of the saddest concepts to be found anywhere in literature. When the average person goes to bed smarting from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," (2) he can hope to be reborn with a better outlook the next day. Not so for poor Macbeth. He can never wake up revitalized because he can never go to sleep.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
