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Being and seeming:

The contrast between surface appearances and true character in Shakespeare's Macbeth

When Lady Macbeth learns that the witches have predicted that her husband Macbeth will be king she gloats and greets her husband with the words "…look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't" (I.5). The fact that the three 'weird sisters' have predicted Macbeth's kingship is interpreted by Lady Macbeth as license to commit the murder of Duncan. Lady Macbeth's words indicate a contrast between 'being' and 'seeming' that runs throughout the play. Lady Macbeth urges her husband to seem as though he is loyal even while he conspires with his wife to kill the king. Yet the play underlines the theme that it is not only Macbeth who merely makes a show of what he is not: the dangers of making assumptions based upon surface appearances run throughout the play. Both Duncan and Macbeth are guilty of this fatal flaw.

Of the thane of Cawdor, which Macbeth is made at the beginning of the play according to the witches' predictions, Duncan says: "There's no art/To find the mind's construction in the face: / He was a gentleman on whom I built/An absolute trust" (I.4). Similarly, the new Thane of Cawdor Macbeth and Lady Macbeth will lie when they kill Duncan, pretending that grooms killed the king even though it was Macbeth (conspiring with his lady) who did so. Yet it is not only Duncan who is a poor judge of character. Macbeth places absolute credulity in the witches when they tell him that he will be king. Later in the play when feeling particularly cornered by his adversaries, Macbeth will return to the witches for reassurance that he will remain king. When he is told that "none of woman born/Shall harm Macbeth," this seems to indicate that he is safe (IV.1). However, Macbeth will soon discover that this is not the case. His most hated enemy Macduff was born via Caesarian section, ripped from the womb rather than given birth to in a natural fashion. When Macbeth hears this he realizes that he is as good as dead and that the witches merely seemed to speak the truth -- or rather, they spoke a truth specifically designed to be deceitful and to urge him on to do ill. "And be these juggling fiends no more believed, / That palter with us in a double sense; / That keep the word of promise to our ear,/And break it to our hope" (V.8).

However, as poor a judge of character the kings are in the play, Shakespeare also demonstrates that this equivocation is in the mind of the beholder, not simply because all people are deceitful. People believe what they want to believe: even though Duncan regards Macbeth as someone who seems honest, when Macbeth makes a show of mourning after Duncan's murder and uses over-inflated language to justify his actions, no one really believes him. Malcolm, the heir says to his brother: "Let's not consort with them: / To show an unfelt sorrow is an office/

Which the false man does easy" (II.3). Unlike his father who wanted to believe that the former Thane of Cawdor and Macbeth were good men, Malcolm (and Macduff) is able to see Macbeth with clear eyes. This ability to penetrate the 'seeming' of evildoers is also underlined by the fact that Macbeth seems to 'want' to believe the witches when they foretell his future unlike his companion and friend (whom he will later murder) Banquo who shrugs off their predictions: "And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths" (I.3). Once Macbeth is convinced that he is destined to be king, his ambition causes him to begin to think about murdering Duncan and while he experiences moral qualms, he eventually bends to his wife's adamant stance that they act 'now.' A better man might merely have assumed that events would passively and in a positive fashion allow him to assume kingship but Macbeth does not. Thus, while he is deceived by the 'seeming' truth of the witches, just as he deceives Duncan, Shakespeare also demonstrates that the ability to be lured into foolish actions (making Macbeth Thane of Cawdor) or evil actions (the murder of Duncan) is also rooted in an individual's character. Finally, when Macbeth becomes king, the entire kingdom is all too well aware of the fact that he is a tyrant in borrowed robes who does not deserve his position.