Appearance is the way we see something or how it looks, and may be deceptive
and misleading, instead reality is the state of things as they exist or something’s
true state and is genuine.
The theme of how things appear vs how they really are, is introduced at the
beginning in the first act, when the three witches say:
·“Fair is foul and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air” (1.1.12-13)
By this they mean that what is beautiful will eventually become ugly within
time, and what is ugly will soon become beautiful.
The words FAIR and FOUL suggest the confusion between good and bad,
meanwhile FOG and FILTHY suggest unclear vision and predict the struggle
that the characters will go through, to understand all the events happening
around them.
Later the witches give their prophecies to Macbeth and Banquo and in particular
he is confused about their nature, in fact he wonders whether they are
supernatural creatures or human beings, as they appear to be. So their
appearance makes it hard for Mcbeth and Banquo to decide whether they can
trust them or not.
·“Are ye fantastical, or that indeed which outwardly ye show?”
We can also consider the world's appearance and reality as misreading things. In
the play this consideration is introduced by King Duncan. In this part of the
story the Thane of Cawdor betrays him and Scotland by allying himself with
Norway, so the King expresses his emotions and thoughts by saying:
·“There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face: He was a
gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.” (1.4.11-14)
He wants to underline the fact that it is impossible to know what people really
think just by looking at their faces. In fact the Thane of Cawdor was a person
that he trusted and would have never thought that he could do something like
that. This concept is very important because it will be shown many times
throughout the whole play.
