I ’gin to be aweary of the sun, / And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.—
Act V, Scene 5 · Macbeth
Context
Realizing the prophecy has turned against him and his defeat is imminent, Macbeth expresses weariness of life itself and calls for battle preparations, choosing to fight rather than flee or surrender.
Analysis
The sun, traditionally a symbol of life, order, and kingship, becomes something Macbeth is 'aweary of,' inverting its usual positive valence. His wish for the world's 'estate' to be 'undone' escalates from personal death-wish to cosmic destruction—if he can't rule the world, he'd rather see it annihilated entirely. This megalomaniacal despair reveals how completely he's conflated his own existence with the world's meaning, a final expression of the egotism that drove his ambition from the start.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that even Macbeth's despair is a form of tyranny—he can't imagine a world that continues without him at its center, so his final vision is apocalyptic erasure, showing how tyrannical thinking corrupts even the tyrant's relationship to his own defeat.