What? We're all going to die?!

           Practically every main character in a well written work of literature has some sort of epiphany, or anagnorisis that changes their choices or outlook on the world. Some are more noticeable than others, but it doesn’t matter if it can be seen or not the moment just has to have some kind of an impact. For Macbeth, there is a major impact.
           In Act 5, scene 5, Macbeth is preparing to charge into battle against Malcolm’s forces when he is given the news that his wife has died. It can be inferred that she killed herself. This is not expected in Macbeth’s world. He states, “She should have hereafter” (5.5.20). In his mind, his wife is this strong woman or in other words she is like him and doesn’t let guilt consume every moment, eventually leading to madness. In an earlier scene, when the doctor tells Macbeth that Lady Macbeth is, “Not so sick my lord,/ As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies/ That keep her from her rest” (5.3.46-47). Macbeth does not accept that his wife is having nightmares, “thick coming fancies.” He simply tells the doctor, “Cure her of that” (5.3.49). His conscience and his humanity are turned off. He cannot understand that his wife feels guilt. After all it was her idea to commit high treason, but her only role was to make the guards drunk. She wasn’t supposed to see Duncan’s bleeding body. “Who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?” (5.1.41-42). That image haunts her until her death.
              So, in reaction to the news of his wife’s death, Macbeth pauses from ordering his army into battle and ponders what has happened. He realizes that he cannot escape death: “And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/ The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!” (5.5.25-26).

Here, he is calling for life to end because he sees the future as tediously crawling towards death and he wants to meet it head on. He has cheated Fate so much, but he sees that it all leads to the same place: death. This is his anagnorisis. He sees that, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more” (5.5.28-30). He is now “the poor player” and he senses that “his hour upon the stage” is coming to an end. He describes life as being “a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing” (5.5.29-31). All of his ambition, the deaths that he has intentionally (Duncan, Banquo, Lady Macduff, etc.) and unintentionally (Lady Macbeth) caused have been for naught.
              Hearing that Birnam Wood appears to be moving towards the castle and that the witches’ prophecy is becoming a reality, Macbeth now prepares to meet his Fate. He says, “I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun/ And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone” (5.5.55-57). The news of Lady Macbeth’s death has brought his own mortality into perspective. He is not just tired, he is “aweary,” exhausted, yet impatient, and dissatisfied with life as he knows it.