Appearance And Reality In Macbeth

One way Shakespeare explores appearance and reality is through MacBeth's early thoughts with the witches prophecies. In an aside MacBeth says, “My thought, whose murder yet is fantastical” but then carries on to say to Banquo, “If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me without my stir.” This shows that though MacBeth is thinking about killing Duncan, it is not what he says to Banquo. The reality of his thoughts are very different to what he shows other people. In the first quote, the caesura breaks up the sentence giving it a jittery and excited feel. Whereas what he says to Banquo is calm and thought out. He knew what he was going to say. He also uses equivocation well here giving the audience and Banquo the effect that he is telling

Appear to be a harmless flower but really be the dark person under and kill Duncan by keeping his trust and trust of people around us. The uses of the imperitive makes what she is saying more convincing to Macbeth and the reference to the ‘serpent’ is an allusion to the Bible story Genesis where the serpent represents evil that convinced Eve to eat the apple. Also here Lady Macbeth appears to be incharge of Macbeth and more masculine in nature also shown by the imperatives, but later on she cannot keep up this appearance and she starts to suffer and lose her appearance. This is shown in the quote, “Out damned spot! Out, I say! One, two”. In public she appears to be sane and in control of her life. But at night the reality of her mental state comes to light with sleep walking and talking. The exclamation marks show her despair and anger at her guilt of what she has done. The punctuation and caesuras create a jittery feel which creates a worried and unstable feeling and shows how much her mental state has deteriorated. The repetition of the word ‘out’ shows how much she wants to appear strong and stable again. All of this

This is shown in the quote, “The temple-haunting martlet does approve”. The temple appears to Duncan and Banquo to be warm and safe which is why the martlet approves of the castle and wants to raise it’s young there. If it wasn’t good, it wouldn’t go there. The martlet is a metaphor for Duncan and his nativity that the castle is a safe place. But in reality, the castle is a dark and dreadful place, full of danger. The martlet is misleading. The fact Banquo describes the castle like this is ironic because Duncan is going to be murdered there. It is also a reference to another of Shakespeare’s plays, ‘The Merchant of Venice’ where ‘martlet’ is used to describe someone who was deceived by appearances. The martlet could represent Duncan and his naive about the Macbeth and his