The Role Of Deception In Macbeth

Thesis: Deception, seduction, and ambition are a lethal combination. Shakespeare’s Macbeth establishes this concept early on. Ambition is the motivational thrust that most often gives momentum as one tries to achieve success. However, without the occasional tune-up, Macbeth demonstrates how unchecked ambition can quickly become a speeding, out-of-control, vehicle that ultimately leads to destruction.

In the play Macbeth you have deception left and right, especially when things start to get to Macbeth’s head and he wants everything he was told he will be sometime in his future. In this play it’s hard to know who you can and cannot trust due to how many lies there are and how often people manipulate others. How can you trust someone that was completely sane at the beginning of the play that turns into a psycho just because he wanted to become king and make the prophecies true. Or even someone that was ranked second in the land to become a traitor and then get punished by death. The theme of deception in Macbeth is pretty much the whole story but most of it all goes down in the first two acts of the play, which really explains everything and who you can or cannot trust, along with knowing who won’t turn around and stab them in the back and become a traitor.

Before the act of Macbeth is committed to Duncan, the audience recognize his guilt at the thought of committing the murder is shown by his vision of the bloody dagger. After the death of Duncan, Macbeth's guilt is shown by the voice he heard, as well as his inability to choke out an "Amen" when he tried to join in with the prayer he overheard after he stabbed Duncan to death.

To avoid telling the truth, be it for our sake or for another’s, we take on the role of equivocators. To equivocate means to use words ambiguously in order to avoid telling the truth without necessarily telling a lie. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the method of ambiguity to avoid telling the truth is used by the witches with the final three prophecies to make their plan to make Macbeth overconfident succeed. Macbeth becoming overconfident is important because his overconfidence restores natural order in the end. To prove that the witches’ plan did succeed, I will be analyzing quotations from the play Macbeth that exhibit Macbeth’s dependency on the witches, Macbeth’s own interpretations and Macbeth’s resulting overconfidence. After the banquet, Macbeth speaks to Lady Macbeth

Another example of Lady Macbeth using her appearance to deceive others is the way she deceives Macbeth into thinking that she is much crueler than she really is. After Duncan’s murder she says, “Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done’t.”, but after Macbeth appears she acts as though she would be ashamed if she felt guilty for murdering the king (2.3.12-13). When she is not in the presence of her husband, she confesses she would not have been able to murder Duncan herself and she is fearful of being caught, but when she is with Macbeth she has a cold demeanour and lacking in empathy. Lady Macbeth uses her appearance to con Duncan into believing that she is trustworthy and Macbeth into believing that she has no negative feelings regarding Duncan’s murder.

Deception and Betrayal in William Shakespeare's Macbeth The play ‘Macbeth” written by William Shakespeare” not only shows us how betrayal and deception undermines society but how it restores the moral law and society back to the way it was before the Thane of Cawdor and the tyrant Macbeth brought about the destruction in the first place. the play Macbeth also featured two changes to the throne of Scotland, both as a result of betrayal, deception, the aid of the weird sisters and the death of kings, the fate of Scotland changed for better and for worse.

Macbeth is a play that is all about deception. Right from the beginning when the three witches meet to talk, the mood being

Also, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are both strong conveyors of deceit. From the onset on the play, Macbeth is characterized as strong and loyal to his king and country. However, once the witches’ prophecy is planted in his head, his thirst for King is so intense that it cannot be quenched and slowly his admirable traits are erased. When Macbeth is preparing for the King’s arrival at his house, he starts to question his murderous thoughts. He states that the King will be here in “double trust” , for Macbeth will be his hostess and will also be acting as a subject of the state. How can he possibly do such a grim task? The answer is Lady Macbeth. She lusts after becoming Queen and living a life of fantasy and does everything in her power to persuade her husband to kill the King. She questions his courage, she feeds his ego and she emasculates poor Macbeth all in an effort to get what she wants disguised as what is best for him. When he agrees, she tells him to “look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t” in order to commit this regicide. Lady Macbeth, such a beautiful woman, is actually a cunning, strategic and determined lady – so determined that she’s willing to risk everything and make her husband lie to the king and betray him. It’s funny how things are not always what they appear to be.

“O worthiest cousin, the sin of my gratitude even now was heavy on me!”(I. i. 347) the king cannot repay him for what he has done for their kingdom. Macbeth is a highly respected warrior because he is loyal, trusted, and honest man. Macbeth is a vulnerable man; he is weak. Letting other people make decisions for him, he becomes more incapable of resisting how people will view him as a “loyal” soldier since he cannot follow through. In the film Macbeth the setting is right in the middle of war. Macbeth has held the enemy facing him, but he hesitates and looks at his soldiers for the okay to kill the enemy. With that being said, he is seriously self conscious and lets others makes the decisions for him. Before he is going to kill King

Macbeth is a play about subterfuge and trickery. Macbeth, his wife, and the three Weird Sisters are linked in their mutual refusal to come out and say things directly. Instead, they rely on implications, riddles, and ambiguity to evade the truth. Macbeth’s ability to manipulate his language and his public image to hide his foul crimes makes him a very modern-seeming politician. As Bernard McElroy says in his literary criticism about Macbeth, “ When confronted with the possibility of committing a daring through criminal act, he willfully deceives himself for a short time and embraces an opposite view of the world...in the aftermath he’s committed to a world-view he does not believe.” Macbeth tricks himself into believing it is fine killing

Throughout Macbeth things are not always as they seem. Deception is always present with Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the three witches.

Macbeth pretends to show sorrow after hearing the news of Duncan’s death, in another way he is asking himself these questions. This shows that Macbeth is already starting to feel guilty of what he has done. "To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy.” (Malcolm, Act II, scene III), Macbeth shows false sorrow; he is covering up his lie by showing his sorrow towards Duncan’s death. A liar can easily pretend to feel sorrow even though he doesn’t feel any.

In the play “Macbeth”, William Shakespeare uses belief in the existence and power of witches to create and influence the audience’s understanding of the play. Our initial impression of Macbeth is one of a brave and capable warrior, however once we see his interaction with the three “evil sisters” (Shakespeare, 1996) we realises that his physical audacity is coupled by an intense amount of ambition and self doubt. It is believed that the witches are the motive behind this ambition which eventually leads to his tragedy, however strong diverging arguments are in existence. The intensity of Macbeth’s tragedy is dependent on whether or not the witches are “professed to be able to control the naïve, innocent Macbeth” or whether he is to blame

    This preoccupation of mind of Macbeth is clearly seen as the play develops.  We see that this obsession to power is accomplished by Macbeth by any means necessary.  "Sacrifice any and all if necessary" would be a good portrayal of his state of mind.  He kills to cover up his earlier murder victims.  He has let this fixation take him on a one-way path, a path of no return.  It is exactly the same as lying.  The problem with a lie is that one must lie to make the first lie believable.  The more one lies, the more they become convicted to not coming clean.  This is exactly what happens to Macbeth.  He kills to cover up his first murder.  "The death of each day's life...Give me the daggers...This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine." (Act 2, Scene 2).  He commits himself deeper into this passion of gaining power and status.  This inevitably leads up to his downfall.

In real life, we should not judge people solely on their appearances. There are many people who appear to be trustworthy but in reality, are not. Appearance versus reality is an important theme in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The theme focuses on characters who are deceived by what appears to be real, and on the tragic consequences that follow this error in judgment. These characters include, Duncan, who trusts Macbeth too much; Lady Macbeth, who tricks by the witches and herself; Macbeth trickes by other people in the play.