Appearance Vs Reality In Shakespeares Work English Literature Essay

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1564. Very little is known about Shakespeares life, however, what we do know is that he has the reputation of a fantastic dramatist and English poet. The work in which he has created can be seen as being extremely unique and Shakespeare himself can be argued to be one of the most influential and greatest playwright and poet of all time.

Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth are three of many Shakespeare’s famous plays. Critics have long noted a dichotomy of the issue that concerns appearance vs. reality within Shakespeare’s plays. Helen Gardner states ‘what proves difficult to both the audience and also the characters within the play is to determine what outward appearance actually is and what really constitutes as reality.’ [1] Ribner also argues that Shakespeare is able to ‘achieve a slightly confusing effect by constructing characters that employ certain disguises and hide their true appearances from each other.’ [2] All the plays mentioned are extremely similar in this respect; however they all do hold a difference in the nature and purpose of appearance and reality in which they hold.

In Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sanders states that ‘disguises within plays provide the audience with a tension that occurs about the view people have concerning appearances and reality. This tension is created due to the result of magical influence.’ [3] In comparison to this Twelfth Night and Macbeth show the decision of disguise is made by the characters themselves, it is their free will to hide away from reality and pretend to be something that they are not, unlike in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when the disguise is something out of one’s control. Whether it is dressing up as the opposite gender, pretending to be something that you’re not, hiding behind appearances to cover up what is actually reality in one’s life or having hallucinations through a reality in which you try to hide, it is evident that within the plays, the most important similar aspect in which they all hold is the paradox of reality vs. appearance.

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As mentioned above, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, holds the idea of magical influence that is evident throughout the play in which drives the disguises that occur, without the people having a say in the matter of disguise. In opposition to this certain characters in Twelfth Night cross-dress as a result of a conscious decision. When one considers the Elizabethan period and theatrical conventions within the time of the plays, the issue of cross-dressing and confusion of genders can be seen to create certain problematic issues including raiding questions about the nature of gender and also the nature of power and social status. In this way some of Shakespeare’s plays ‘can be seen to manipulate appearance and reality to advance plot and gender and also comment of broader issues such as gender and power.’ [4] Viola, for example in Twelfth Night is a young girl in a new, strange city, her motivations for cross dressing are somewhat obvious in that she wants to make something of herself in the new place in which she has come across. She begs, ”conceal me what I am, and be my aid/ for such disguise as happy shall become/the form of my intent” (II.51-53). This appearance can be seen to serve Viola well at the beginning of the play as she is free to seek employment, although she isn’t at all aware of the trouble it is going to cause her by doing so.

In the character of Viola/Cesario the appearance in which she takes on seems to somewhat constitute the reality for other characters, but of course not herself. As time moves forward throughout the play she finds herself falling deeper in love with her master and then she finds herself wishing for the reality under her appearance, ”o time, thou must untangle this, not I/it is too hard a knot for me t’untie.”(I.38-39). Here we see her identity as the reality behind her appearance in which she can’t reveal. It is only through the arrival of her brother that she is able to shed her appearance and engage in the reality in which she dreams for. In addition, the fact that Viola falls for Orsino in the play Twelfth Night, can only be described as complicated. This due to her choice that she makes at the beginning of the play of dressing as a young man and hiding the reality of her actual life. However, even though this much confused state is resolved at the end of the play, it can be argued that ‘her appearance actually dictates the reality of her somewhat love life.’ [5] This can be seen at the climax of her gender conflict, Viola realises that Olivia loves him/her, ”poor lady, she were better love a dream.”(I.24). Thus, an appearance of a dream can’t be reality, proving them to be at conflict. This concept can also be linked within A Midsummer Night’s Dream and also Macbeth, as most the characters within the plays seem to live in a world of dreams and ambition where nothing in reality is what it seems to be. However, the difference that exists in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the use of magical influence that is evidently being used in Shakespeare’s play rather than a conscious decision made by the characters themselves.

The notion of the concern between appearances vs. reality can also be seen through the theme of deceit in all the plays mentioned. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the characters do not choose to be disguised, they are just chosen, for example Puck transforms (magically) the head of Bottom into an ass. After this, everyone who meets him, except for the woman in love with him sees it as a disguise. These are the scenes within the play that are to do with the nature of deceit, and the fact that appearances are able to hide ones reality in whatever context it may be. Due to the fact that magical elements are used within this play it can be argued to demonstrate how, ‘Shakespeare is able to use the device of disguise to reveal a higher truth.’ [6] The play Twelfth Night also has evident issues of deceit that confuse the concept of appearance vs. reality, this can be seen in the trick in which is played on Malvolio. The only disguise that is evident in him is his background doesn’t seem to match with his grand visions of how he and other people see him. Thus it can be argued that he appears to create an appearance to replace his reality. His huge ego can be argued by Hibbard to ‘allow him only to look at outward appearances rather than deeper truth or reality.’ [7] Due to this he eventually grows into a somewhat love object role and wears yellow stockings to show he has been misled. Hence, it is clear that ‘love is the ultimate form of appearances triumphing reality and when taken too lightly, they begin to dictate reality itself.’ [8] Similarly, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena states ”love can transpose to form a dignity/Love looks not with the eyes/but with the mind, and therefore is winged cupid painted blind.”(II.232-235) This famous line can be interlinked to the notion of reality and dreams, ‘dreams are blind reality, appearances that never are, reality can never be a dream.’ [9] However, Sanders states that the line means ‘love has no knowledge and can be disguised since it allows no clarity of sight.’ [10] We then see Titania, under a influence of magic, being made blind to the disguise of Bottom, where the audience see it as somewhat complex insight into the nature of love and if blinded by appearance who can fool one another taking them out of a safe sense of reality.

Due to deceit, Bottom feels that this love he has felt was just a dream, again playing on this concept of appearance vs. reality and raising the questioning of what is reality. Even though we can see that Bottom is not at all in his reality, he does try to shift into his given role as best as possible, thus trying to make it his new appearance his new reality. By doing this, us as an audience can see him change elements about him to fit into this role, including his language. Although he misuses the meanings of certain words as he usually does throughout the play, we see him grow somewhat more self-satisfying and comfortable with the bizarre disguise that has been placed upon him. Even though it is the concepts of the magical elements that are confusing the tensions between appearance and reality we can still see a similarity with him and Malvolio. As mentioned above they both have massive egos that stop them from looking deeper into a person’s reality through their appearance. On the other hand, however, they are both blinded by the concept of love, and just assume that the women they love are too good for them, paying much attention to issues involved such as class. Thus, neither is willing to look past their appearances and class issues to get a greater understanding of their reality.

In comparison to the comic plays, the world of Macbeth, creates appearances of deceit, that are seen to play a huge part within the play. The kings trust can be seen to be misplaced when he grants the title of Thane of Cawdor to Macbeth. During the play Macbeth’s appearance comes across as being loyal and noble not to mention the fact he is a highly brave soldier. However, in reality Macbeth wants to become king himself and begins to entertain this notion with the help of his wife. Thus, he appears to be a suitable candidate for the role that Duncan gives to him; however, in reality he is in fact nothing but an actual threat towards Duncan, as we see his wanted ambitions flair through his appearance. We as an audience can also see Lady Macbeth as a prominent example of a concern with the issue of appearance vs. reality; according to Duncan ”the castle hath a pleasant seat/ the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto gentle senses.”(II.1-3) However, what Duncan seizes to realise is this will in fact be his resting place when he is in fact killed. The appearance outside of the castle presents itself as a welcoming, warm and innocent place to be. However, in reality the castle shows people pretending to be loyal willing to overthrow a natural order within the society in which they live to gain their ambitions. Within Macbeth Shakespeare uses hidden intentions to utilise the appearance and reality within the play. Lady Macbeth foolishly outs her intentions when she states, ”look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under.”(I.74-75) this plays around with the concerning appearance vs. reality as she wants Macbeth to appear innocent and nice, but in contrast to this she gives his reality the role of a venomous man that is ready to kill to achieve his ambitions, and Lady Macbeth is clearly ready to move anyone out of her way to do this. Lady Macbeth, even though she is the one hardly on stage, like Viola she is the driving of the play itself, she puts on a feast as a false sense of security that Duncan evidently falls into. The glory and feast of the night can be seen as ‘great contrasts to the gruesome murder that is to follow and the shocking reality that it is about to unleash on the Macbeths and also Scotland.’ [11] 

As mentioned above all of the plays reveal to the audience how similar they actually are in terms of appearance vs. reality. All the plays end, to a certain extent, happily and with such concerns and issues that hung upon appearances and reality have been resolved. However, Goddard argues that there is a ‘remaining sense that there are left over issues that plague the texts even when everything is considered to be resolved and happy.’ [12] Puck states to the audience, ”if shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended/That you all have slumbered here, whilst these visions did appear.”(II.54-56) This line states that it could be possible that throughout the play the audience were in fact asleep and they may not have been in a safe sense of reality, thus explaining the mayhem that was happening upon the stage in front of them. It is interesting how he represents the actors as shadows, almost as referring them to figments of the imagination rather than actual people, thus setting the scene stating that reality is not at all what it seems to be. What also proves interesting is that, throughout the play there is presence of fairies and magic that drives the main action again playing with this notion of shadows and appearances. Similar to this in the play Twelfth Night, even though they are not literally shadowy fairies and magical elements but a sense of shadows of reality is given to the audience. Thus, giving the impression of a ‘blurred representation of reality,’ [13] through consistent gender bending and the human choices of disguising characters thus, ‘reality itself is not what appearances convey until the very conclusion.’ [14] However, in Macbeth, the shadowy aspect as mentioned above links in due to the fact that Shakespeare is able to explore the theme of appearance vs. reality through the characters of the witches. These characters within the play are the ones seen to bring about confusion and thus infect the natural order within the play. In the witches world, ”fair is foul, foul is fair.”(I.11-12) Nothing is as it seems at all within the reality of the witch’s life. On the night of the murder, Macbeth witnesses a floating dagger, again that shadowy element of appearance vs. reality and the questioning of what is actually real. We are able to see this confusion as Macbeth cannot decide if this dagger is real or a figment of his imagination. This confusion over Macbeth increases throughout the play as the witches gain more power over him. Also the hallucinations that Macbeth has, such as Banqou, even though he appears happy with news about his death, in reality he shows guilt based on the fact that he hallucinates Banquo’s ghost in the room.

In conclusion, we can see that all three of the above plays are similar as they employ concerns within reality through altering appearance. It can also be argued that they also have the same false appearances that drive the action that occurs within the plays. Whether it’s through magical aspects, conscious decisions or hallucinations it is clear that a theme of appearance vs. reality is evident throughout the plays. When this aspect is viewed as a whole, the three plays share more in common than one first thought and share the same reactions to tensions that are brought about by this battle of appearance vs. reality, which indefinitely leads to a comparable final result. However, they clearly have certain differences within the representation of the issue discussed. It is obvious that A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night are comedies and we are able to see a similar ending of a wedding and a happy ending. Furthermore, without the concerns of appearances and reality I believe that the plays would not be as comical as first intended. However, in vast contrast to this the play Macbeth is undoubtedly a very tragic, shocking and somewhat disturbing play. In the course of the play it is evident that the boundaries between reality and appearance are in a constant state of flux, this is also evident in the other two plays that are mentioned. Moreover, in all three plays we can see the characters regularly concealing their true reality and instead revealing appreaserces and ambitions rather than striving for a greater reality and trying to achieve what is actually possible in life.

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