William Shakespeare's Macbeth

People, everywhere, are often in disguise and it makes it challenging for someone identify their true motives. Thus, because one’s perspective of a person continuously changes, it can lead one to suffer many consequences, such as death. Appearance vs. reality is a crafty way of playing with a person’s view of another. In the play, Macbeth, William Shakespeare demonstrates the recurring theme that what is thought is not always obvious at first sight and, as a result, causes one to be deceived through the appearance of others. The characters in the play can experience, cause, and avoid the effects of trusting someone’s identity. Appearance is consistently hiding the reality of things through these important characters. The effects of trusting appearance is seen when King Duncan naively trusts Macbeth. In addition, Lady Macbeth shows false images to others around her causes the effect of trusting identity. Thus, this is shown through Macduff’s suspicion of Macbeth that the effects of trusting appearance can be avoided.

The first situation that shows the effect of depending on appearance is through King Duncan’s assurance of Macbeth. Duncan treats Macbeth with great respect and cherishes him based on how he appears. For example, Duncan says to Macbeth, “O worthiest cousin, the sin of my ingratitude even now was heavy on me” (1.4.15-16). This shows how proud Duncan is of Macbeth’s accomplishment in the battle that he even calls him his cousin. He is deceived by revering Macbeth as a hero. This foreshadows how their relationship will essentially become stronger and stronger because of how Macbeth is presenting himself to Duncan. Nonetheless, with Duncan stating this, he does not know that it is already thought of Macbeth that he plans...

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...what is authentic.

In conclusion, many of the effects of trusting appearance are caused by the perspectives a person puts toward others. When characters judge by what others display on the outside, without having them know it, it results in experiencing the deception they create for themselves. Thus, it really blinds them of what is going on in reality. In the play, Shakespeare demonstrates that determining a person by what you see can lead to a downfall and can result in making risky choices that could jeopardize what lies ahead of one’s life. In addition, they can also create the effect of depending on someone’s identity by being someone they are not just for their own benefit. Despite all of this, people should not evaluate others based on their outward characteristics, but rather look at their true motives and intentions so that repercussions can be prevented.