What a Tangled Web We Weave

The Tragedy of Macbeth is not only one of William Shakespeare’s most famous works, it’s also one of his most known and revered, and remains in school curriculum all over the United States. Many different themes can be taken from the tragedy of Macbeth, and the phrase,” Look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t” reflects the theme of deception, manipulation, and ambition completely. Through careful analysis of just the first act, you can see that Lady Macbeth justifies a distinctive correlation between the tragedy of Macbeth, and the three main themes listed above.

I can’t see him ruling a whole country on his own. Thank goodness he has such an ambitious, stern wife. Lady Macbeth will be the real ruler of Scotland once macbeth is crowned. I can’t help but to have mixed emotions about this coronation. I should feel happy that Macbeth is going

Deception is defined as “the act of tricking someone by telling them something that is not true”. In the play, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, deception is always present and things are not always what they appear to be. In this great work of literature, the three witches; the Thane of Cawdor; and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the very embodiments of trickery and show us the true effects deception can have on man.

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

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a selfish Scottish thane becomes over-ambitious and commits several murders in order to gain and stay in power. After the murders, Macbeth evades suspicion by hiding his guilt and intentions, therefore deceiving others into thinking that he is innocent. Other characters including Lady Macbeth, the witches and the Scottish thanes also use their appearances to hide the truth and deceive others. With these examples, Shakespeare shows that appearances can be deceiving.

Like Ahab, however, realizing the power in his hands, man has taken it and used it to his own purposes. He has chosen a path of vengeance, hatred, and disobedience, "[a]nd even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind" (240).

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.

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli. The term deception takes a part in betraying another for one’s self interest. It was a key element within Shakespeare’s work. Romeo and Juliet is one of the prime examples of this topic. They showed deception very clearly by hiding their actions and betraying their families, leading to their tragic ending. However, it was not the only piece Shakespeare wrote that showed the multiple consequences caused by an act of betrayal. The power of deception and the consequences that follow is a staple in literature, and no one shows this idea more clearly than Shakespeare.

which a town turns into chaos after a series of false accusations of witchcraft. The play conveys a

The Tragedy of Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare during the early 1600s. The play is set in Scotland. The main character, Macbeth, is influenced by the witches’ prophecies and decides to kill Duncan, the current king, to become king. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a loyal and trustworthy thane. After encountering the witches, he became a traitor who would kill anyone to be king. The witches practice witchcraft, which is the practice of magic that uses spells and calls spirits. It well known during this period. Many people associate witchcraft with evil and demons because of their satanic rituals. They also believed that witches worshipped the Devil. Throughout the play, witchcraft is portrayed as evil from the chaos created by the witches and is shown through Macbeth.

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

     Man, even while slowly destroying the world, will never be able to let go of their power and give up the knowledge of good and evil. For man to give back the knowledge they have attained, "would mean to spitting out the fruit of that tree and giving the rule of the world back to the gods" (168). By doing this man would return to innocence, become a childlike creature that depends on the gods to rule their lives. Man will have the wisdom of the gods, "if he tries to preempt that wisdom, the result won't be enlightenment, it will be death" (183). It is this lack of wisdom that leads man to continue to destroy the world. This scares man and ensures that man will never let go of the knowledge of good and evil.

During the first act of Macbeth, Macbeth meets the witches, a main motif in the play. The witches

Macbeth was written between 1606 and 1611 by William Shakespeare. It is about a Scottish nobleman, Macbeth, who is told a fortune by three Witches who tell him that he will be king. When he tells his wife, Lady Macbeth they plot, and murder King Duncan. Macbeth then became king, as was for told.

Shakespeare uses the setting of Scotland in medieval times for his play, MacBeth. The time period chosen explains the barbaric events that take place. During the Middle Ages, coups against the king in power were common. The prophetic witches can also be explained by the setting of this play. During the 1100s in Scotland there was widespread belief of witches