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Bobbie Cates
Mr. Paine
English 2110
11 November 2010
Macbeth
Macbeth is a play that tells of a man who is deceived by his wife and also himself. In the
play we learn of the irony and deception that comes of the characters. Deception is definitely
brought out in this play. Were the prophecies to blame for the deception of Macbeth and his
Lady or was this a part that the witches played to deceive everyone into committing malicious
acts? In this play we find an obstacle between man and wife, Lady Macbeth seeks to hold power
over her husband making him wither to her demands. During this era in which Macbeth was
written, witches and witchcraft played a key role on the outcome of the deception we see here.
So in the very first scene of Macbeth, deception is clearly defined the witches say “Fair is foul
and foul is fair”. These acts of deception led those characters in the play such as Macbeth and his
wife to a very disastrous ending.
The definition of deception as defined by Webster dictionary states that deception is the
act of deceiving. In the play “Macbeth understands the reasons for resisting evil and yet goes
ahead with his disastrous plan. His awareness and sensitivity to moral issues, together with his
conscious choice of evil, produce an unnerving account of human failure, all the more distressing
because Macbeth is so representatively human.” (Bevington 7)
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Macbeth had a plan of his own, however this was not the plan that his wife had she had her own
plan to deceive and conquer more power. When they say man and women that are married have
bondage that no other have I would say in this play they are right.
Macbeth seeks to win over his wife, where Lady Macbeth is moved by her husband’s
ambitions. But we also see the irony and deceit behind both of their inversions. Deception in the
play is present in every scene throughout the play, beginning with Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and
the three witches are the primary instigators of such deceit. As the witches state at the beginning
of the play “Fair is foul and foul is fair”. When Macbeth killed Duncan and then tried to go and
kill the guard to cover up what act he had committed we see a lot of irony and deceit as well.
However from the play we get that Lady Macbeth is very skilled in her own way of persuading
others. Lady Macbeth states to her husband to look and act as he was pure, but be as evil as he
may inside. This brings a great deal of irony to the play because she is trying to persuade him to
think and be evil.
In Macbeth, Macbeth himself was made to believe he is supposed to be king, when in
reality he was not. Macbeth makes it seem as he loves Duncan and is trustworthy to him, but he
longs to see him dead. It is ironic because Duncan goes to Macbeth’s castle in pursuit that he is
going to be welcomed with high integrity, although he is walking into a path that is going to lead
him to his death. “The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my
battlements. Macbeth is acting this way to give the impression that if Duncan were ever to be
murdered; Macbeth would be the last person to be accused of the murder. This quote said by
Lady Macbeth, means give me the courage to murder”. (Megaessays.com)
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In the play the witches play a large part in the process deception and irony, their prophecies
created greediness for more power. They told Banquo that his sons would be the future kings,
this prophecy lead him to death. Throughout the play the prophecies made by the witches create
a great sense of deceit.
“The belief in existence and power of witches was widely believed in Shakespeare’s day,
as demonstrated by the European witch craze, during which an estimated nine million women
were put to death for being perceived as witches”. (The Burning Times) During the seventeenth
century the majority of people believed that witches were all powerful and that they had great
power over Macbeth. So during this time were the witches and their prophecies in control of
Macbeth or was his actions based on his own demise. So in a sense was his actions a result of
personal choice or were they from an external influence. “It was thought that the witches had the
ability to reverse the natural order of things. This brings into the play the idea of fate and the role
with which it has in the play. One can wonder if Macbeth ever had a chance of doing what was
right after he met the witches”(Courseworkhelp.com) But it is more realistic to believe he was
the one to blame for his actions through the play, cause in the end he made the final decisions.
“The classical concept of tragedy and the tragic hero demands that’s a tragedy involve a
noble character of flawless morals, except for a single “tragic flaw” such as greed, ambition
optimism, or jealousy. A tragic hero chooses to indulge his tragic flaw, fully aware of the
consequences of his choice, and thereby damns himself”. (Thrasher 84) This is a great point,
because it states that someone can be noble and still have flaws as Macbeth was noble to some
extent but in the long run he did damn himself.
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He set his own self up for death by deceiving those who trusted him. As stated by Thrasher once
Macbeth has his crown, his desire to hold power leads him to commit a series of increasingly
brutal crimes. There was no redemption for Macbeth, he and his wife were both going to see the
consequences of their actions.
In Macbeth the irony is so great as well as the deception, I focus on this because it is seen
all throughout the play. There is a great deal of irony when Lady Macbeth insults Macbeth
manliness and calls him weak and cowardly for not having the guts to kill Duncan. Macbeth
regrets all the decisions he has made to kill Duncan, he believes it is wrong and will destroy his
soul. I would say yes it is those who choice to kill should suffer through their souls and be
punished. In the play we see Lady Macbeth struggle with this as well and Macbeth. At night the
natural world responds to Duncan’s murder, chimneys fall, strange screams are in the air and the
earth shudders. Macbeth sees the prophecies made by the witches to show him to be
superstitious. Macbeth in the play takes it upon himself to kill Banquo. He persuades murderers
to kill Banquo, because if they do it he cannot be blamed for the murder of an innocent person as
stated in the play.
When Macbeth sets to have Banquo killed we see a change in him as does Lady Macbeth,
because now she knows she cannot control him or the actions he makes. This is a great deal of
irony here because now he has set to ruin his marriage by not including Lady Macbeth in his
plans to have Banquo killed. This decision made by Macbeth to leave his wife out of his plan to
have Banquo killed, makes Lady Macbeth feel rejected and so she does not care much for her
husband and becomes more self- centered.
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This creates a lot of dismay because where they created Duncan’s murder together here she feels
betrayed by her husband. Deception is shown here because I think Macbeth didn’t want his wife
to control his decision on having Banquo killed. He made the decision to have the murderers kill
him so that he didn’t kill an “innocent” meaning he felt guilty for wanting to kill him.
The irony and deceit is so powerful in this play. Eventually, we see Lady Macbeth and
Macbeth himself suffer from visions of blood, Macbeth sees ghosts of Banquo. The acts of
killing drives Lady Macbeth insane and Macbeth mad. At the beginning of the play Macbeth is
loyal to the king, but because of his ambitions his whole world fell. They say bad things happen
to all good people and Macbeth was a good person in the beginning. However the prophecies
made by the witches mad him create unthinkable acts of deceit. This created a life that he didn’t
know was going to come for him. Lady Macbeth showed this hunger to they were jealous and
greedy and wanted what wasn’t to be theirs. “Hereafter,” which designates time future, here
echoes time past in the play. It echoes Lady Macbeth’s first words to Macbeth. In their first
exchange, “by the all-hail hereafter” (I.v.53) is itself an echo of the witches’ prophecy of
Macbeth’s future (“All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter” – I.iii.50), and it leads first
into her lines on her sense of the future (even as she, who was not present when the witches
spoke, is displaying knowledge of the past that she does not have) and then into a forecast of the
immediate future, from which her death results and which is figured”. (Booth 99)
Lady Macbeth drove herself to her death she went crazy because she could not wash her
hands of the blood from the death of Duncan and commits suicide. The witches’ prophecies were
told to make this play have the outcome it did.
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Macbeth listened to the prophecies and kills for power; his last deception was killing Macduffs
family. He then comes face to face with Macduff where this ends the play; the irony in this last
part of the play is great. Macbeth trying to avoid Mac duff is slain by him. In the last of the play
the Macbeths are considered to be mad murderers.
“There is no refuge of madness for him He had seen the end from the beginning and even
when the end has come it has no terror which he had not known long ago this only is added to his
earlier knowledge though the truth alas comes too late that this present life which he had held so
dear and for which he had sacrificed all this life which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his
honour. And so with the sound and fury of this present world still ringing in his ears he passes
out into that life to come of which he had never dreamed at all”. (Carr 38, 39)
In the play the characters Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth showed us a great deal of
deception and irony. We follow the play through the prophecies mad by the witches, to Duncan
death, the ruins between husband and wife, insanity, suicide, murder, and much more but
through the play we understand that in the beginning Macbeth was a good person, however evil
took over and later killed him for the malicious plots and acts he committed. We knew that Lady
Macbeth was behind her husband but ultimately her deception got the best if her to ending her
life with suicide. Macbeth deceived a lot of characters in the play he killed innocent people and
created a death trap for himself. He sought out to have more power being greedy and deceitful
along with his wife who longs for the same things. Had neither one took such acts into play they
would not have ended life like they did. Deception is the downfall of any man or women.
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However we see that here the great irony is that they could have prevented their own deaths had
they remand loyal to their king and not listened to the witches prophecies.
Works Cited
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4.
Shakespeare, William, and David M Bevington. Macbeth. Toronto: Bantam Books, 2004.
The Burning Times. Direct Cinema, 1990
Thrasher, Thomas. Understanding Macbeth. California: Lucent Books, 2002
Booth, Stephen. King Lear, Macbeth, and Tragedy. Christchurch, New Zealand:
Cybereditions Corporation, 2001. P99
5. Mega Essays. Irony of Macbeth. http:// www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/36117.html:
Oct, 2010
6. Course work help. The influences of the Witches’ Prophecies on Macbeth’s actions.
http://www.courseworkhelp.co.uk/GCSE/English_Literature/m07.htm Oct, 2010
7. Carr, J Comyns. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. London: Bickers & Son Leicester Square,
1889. P38,39