Macbeth Apperance Vs Reality

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Appearance vs. Reality Appearance vs. Reality, this is one of the main themes running throughout this play. This all begins from the famous quote "fair is foul and foul is fair" said by the witches during their first meeting upon the heath. This is shown in many of the characters major and minor.

Firstly when the witches meet Macbeth for the first time "all hail Macbeth"¦that shall be king hereafter" and when the first prophecy comes true Banquo see what the witches are doing but Macbeth can't see past his ambition and Banquo tells Macbeth that "the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence". this means that the witches were making it seem like Macbeth would become king as the first prophecy has come true but really the witches are just trying to fool Macbeth, but Macbeth still does not think it cannot be true "if ill, why hath it given earnest of success, commencing in a truth ?".

When lady Macbeth hears of the news of Macbeth she believes that Macbeth's face "is a book where men may read stranger matters". and that Macbeth is "like th' innocent flower, but be the serpent underneath" meaning that although he appears to be innocent and loyal he is really a fend. But after killing Duncan, Macbeth shows fear, which proves that he is not a blood-thirsty tyrant like readers and scotland are lead to belive "I am afraid what I have done." In lady Macbeth we see her as a women that wants her husband to come to the power of King and to do this she calls upon evil spirits "unsex me here, and fill me from crown to toe top-full of the direst cruelty" and even though she does this and believes that she will not feel remorse. But she is unable to commit the murder herself "had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't" which shows she is not doing it for her own reasons. and she seems like the murder has not effected her "a little water cleans us of this deed" but later on begins to see blood on her hands which others cannot, "out damed spot, out I say" which is when we see that she is really not as strong as she belived and made others belive.

The appartions say that Macbeth "none of woman born shall harm macbeth" and Macbeth belives that he has nothing to fear which is untrue for the fact is that Macduff was "from his mother womb untimely ripped".

This shows again that nothing is what it seems and how the witches have again decived Macbeth.