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Macbeth Appearance Vs Reality Essay

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In Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the reader gains insight to the characters’ lives throughout the play through Shakespeare’s use of appearance versus reality. Shakespeare uses appearance versus reality to tell of a universal thought and presents it to the reader to be interpreted in unique and innovative ways. The characters’ dialogue and metaphors help advance the theme of appearance versus reality. In Macbeth, the reader can see that the actions and life of the characters are not always what they seem and can include a deeper meaning; this theme is played out by the diction and metaphors of the witches, Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth. The first appearance versus reality can be seen through the role of the witches who appear to be help for Macbeth …show more content…

This quote appears as just an evil curse or message told Macbeth to give him insight and persuade him to call on desperate measures to achieve his ultimate goal of being king. While this is what the witches appear to be saying, in reality the witches are setting up the plot of mistrust and misguidance. Fog is unclear and can often misguide you when you drive in it, this can be related to the witches because they often are unclear to Macbeth in their diction and tend to mislead him to result to drastic measures to accomplish what Lady Macbeth wants for them. Also, pollution, or filthy air, often makes it hard to breath and hard for the sun to shine through. Macbeth’s mind is polluted causing him to not see the light in what he is achieving in the present resulting in the desire and insanity to want more power. With his polluted mind, Macbeth cannot see straight or think straight causing him to result to filthy ways just like the filthy air that the witches allude to. In this quote the witches talk about hovering through the fog and filthy air, which is not a literal saying but instead they are referring to being inside Macbeth’s brain and fogging his

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" What he means is that he has done way too many bad things and cannot come back from it. The witches have full responsibility for Macbeth's downfall. Macbeth should have never listened to the witches because from then on, it changed him. The word ‘witchcraft’ has been derived from the word ‘Wicca’ which means ‘the wise one. " During the Middle Ages, witches were considered evil, making pacts and connections with the Devil.

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This could be just reasoning as to why he made the hallucinations he listened to be witches. Witches are known to be unhuman evil spirits that do the bidding of Satan and all dark. It adds to the effect of Macbeth being such a corrupt being when the witches even say that “something wicked this way comes” (4.1.45). This is incredible because to have these figments of his imagination to say that he is dark shows how corrupt Macbeth had become.

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This shows that the witches, a source of chaos and disorder, only meet in bad weather. Weather is a mystery and especially during bad storms one cannot see what is coming. This is the case with Macbeth; he doesn’t see the witches coming and certainly doesn’t see the destruction that will follow. As they exit they say, “Hover through the fog and filthy air” (13). This shows that they fly even in fog which is weather most people cannot see clearly in.

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