Lady Macbeth example essay topic

Appearance versus reality is a major theme in Shakespeare's Macbeth. The opening scene of the play reveals this theme when the three witches proclaim the statement "fair is foul, and foul is fair". This statement foreshadows many of the events in the play. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are forced to use this tactic after killing the king. When Macbeth learns that Malcolm, not him will be appointed king, Macbeth demonstrates appearance versus reality. Lady Macbeth also uses appearance versus reality when she welcomes Duncan and his men at Inverness.

When Macbeth and Banquo meet the three weird sisters, they hail Macbeth as the Thane of Glamis. They also tell him that he will be king. When Macbeth and Banquo arrive at Duncan's castle, Duncan appoints him the Thane of Glamis. After hearing this news, Macbeth starts to think about what the three witches were saying about him being the king. Moments later Duncan announces that his son Malcolm will be the heir to the throne of Scotland. Macbeth pretends to act happy upon hearing this news and even invites all of the kings men and Duncan to his castle at Inverness.

Aside from everyone, however, he exclaims that he will hide his murderous plans. He even hopes for the kings death although he doesn't want to witness it. This is one example of appearance versus reality. In the opening of scene 5, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Macbeth explaining what happened and his plans to assassinate the king.

This further solidifies the evidence that even though Macbeth acted happy for being appointed heir to the throne, he had a murderous plan from the time he heard the news. Another example of appearance versus reality occurs in scene 6 of Act 1, when Duncan and his party arrive at Inverness to be greeted by Lady Macbeth. In scene 5, Lady Macbeth has made up her mind that Duncan will be murdered. She tells Macbeth to act like a good host when Duncan arrives, but act like a serpent under his smile and generosity. When she welcomes Duncan to the castle, she smiles and tells him that there is nothing that her and Macbeth can do to match his generosity toward them. She also says that she can only repay Duncan with prayers.

After Lady Macbeth cooks dinner for the king and his men, she talks to Macbeth about her plan to give Duncan's servants too much to drink and frame them for the murder. When Macbeth tells her that he is having second thoughts about killing Duncan, she calls him a coward so that he will change his mind. The whole time that Lady Macbeth was acting nice toward Duncan and his men, she was plotting on a way to kill Duncan, therefore, appearance versus reality is demonstrated once again. When the kings men find Duncan slain in his bedroom, they bring the news to the Macbeths who proceed to act surprised knowing the whole time that they were the ones who murdered him. Lady Macbeth even goes as far as fainting to ensure that they were innocent. Macbeth proclaims that he wished he would have died an hour earlier so that he would have lived a happy life because the death of the king had taken all goodness out of his life.

With the Macbeths hiding their emotions upon hearing the news of the kings death, another example of appearance versus reality is demonstrated in the play. Appearance versus reality was a major theme in Macbeth. Most of the story is based around this theme. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth were masters of using this tactic. Throughout the play appearance versus reality was used over and over again. Using this tactic made the play much better because it foreshadowed some of the events that were going to occur.