Appearance Vs Reality Flashcards
The Witches at the beginning - AvsR
“when the battles lost and won” - what the outcome is the one side is not thought about by the other side - speaking in riddles to confuse audience as to their true intentions and make it harder to understand - they had to be covert
“fair is foul and foul is fair” - antithesis, witches are acting as a warning to the audience that all is not as it seems. People are easily corruptable and you have to look further than what’s on the surface to know the real truth
“yet your beards forbid me to interpret you as so” - although they should be women they seemingly arent, yet this shouldnt be possible, creating greater intrigue.
Macbeth & The Witches - AvsR
“so foul and fair a day i have not seen” - shows that his fate is tied to this contradictory, twisted way of being.
The Witches make M&B doubt themselves “have we eaten on the insane root?” - believe they are hallucinating as it is so improbable that the witches could exist they simply cant accept it.
Once the prophecies are revealed, M talks in an aside. this shows that he is hiding his true feelings from B and that he is concealing a part of himself that he doesnt want B to see in order to seem more favourable. - “cannot be ill. cannot be good” - he is trying to find the truth of what the witches have told him, which is near impossible as they have manipulated him to cause chaos yet he doesnt know this - he doesnt even know his own reality, only his appearance.
Lady Macbeth and Macbeth - AvsR
LM isn’t to be undermined - although she is a woman, she drives M to commit the regicide and calls upon spirits to “unsex me here” - something that would contrast a typically meek, feminine woman. She is a powerful and cunning plotter - this is unexpected
“look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t” - LM is manipulating M but he doesnt know this yet - he doesnt even know the truth of his own wife’s being - she tells him to act one way but really feel another, encouraging him to oppose D and ultimately kill him. Biblical reference to serpent - lies and treachery.
However despite LM’s power leading to her “keen knife” killing D, she ultimately causes her own death, although it seems like she will not be guilty before the murder. She didnt know her true reality either - she thought she would be unaffected but becomes severly mentally ill (“out damned spot, out i say” - blood motif for guilt)
Banquet - AvsR
before this banquet, M seems fine to his guests, albeit slightly paranoid. “play the humble host”
When M can see the ghost of B sitting at his seat (“ne’er shake thy gory locks at me”), he becomes frantic/frenzied and begins to act out (out of fear and guilt) in front of his nobles, showing that the separation between his exterior and interior is beginning to crack.
In an aside: “then comes my fit again” - he is self-aware at this point, trying to hide his feelings again but it is not working - a departure from 1.3
“he grows worse and worse” - LM tells half-truths to the nobles to get them to leave so that she can talk to M on his own.
Final realisation - AvsR
“Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell” - Mal refers to M/other traitors such as MacDonald and says that it is hard to tell who has good intentions and who doesnt.
The whole of scotland finally sees M for who he truly is (a “butcher” - cruel)
M curses the “juggling fiends” in his final moment - a moment of anagnorisis where he realises all too late that they had been concealing the truth from him the whole time. (“None of woman born shall harm Macbeth”)
“palter with us in a double sense”
