This week I learned that Macbeth is a very sexual play… the end

I’m kidding, my teacher would be pretty upset with me if that was all I learned this week. In this unit, we are studying Macbeth and the 1950s. With act 1 of Macbeth finished and a lecture on the Cold War out of the way, we already have so much to dive into. Our big idea for this project is Appearance vs Reality. How does appearance deceive or reveal reality? There are so many aspects of Macbeth that mention appearance vs reality and the war is all about deceiving your enemies.

I want to start this project off with a good understanding of what Appearance vs Reality is because it is our main focus of the project. In this post, I will be looking further into that.

Act 1 of Macbeth is built upon appearing as something you are not. Macbeth’s ambition draws him towards being king but one thing lies in his way. The current king. However, he is still a loyal servant and trustee of the king and he finds himself in quite the dilemma. Lady Macbeth thinks the answer is clear. She wants Macbeth to be king and is prepared to kill Duncan herself. She even goes as far as to rid herself of her womanly qualities so she may be killed with the ability to kill like a man. At this point, Lady Macbeth has told Macbeth to leave the killed to her. All he has to do it “look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t” (Lady Macbeth Scene 5, Act 1).

I created this image which represents my thoughts on appearance vs reality in this section of the play.

Macbeth has found it quite hard to hide his dark desires to kill the king. In scene 4 of act 1, Macbeth calls upon some supernatural help saying “Stars hide your fire, let not light see my dark and black desires”. In the image I made I represented his dilemma with all the things running through his head. The influence of the witched can be seen in the back and at the forefront, his wife who is controlling him in many ways.

How does this connect to the 1950s? Well, politics is politics. Whether it happened in 1040 with Macbeth or in 1947 in the beginnings of the Cold War. Like I mentioned before, during the war, especially a cold one, knowledge is power. So you need to keep those thoughts to yourself. It’s all about appearing as though you are something you aren’t. That you are on someone’s side when in reality you have plans of your own.

Nearing the end of World War Two, President FDR (USA), Winston Churchill (United Kingdom) and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union) gathered together at the Yalta Conference to discuss the division of Germany. Although they appeared to be working together the Soviet Union and the USA were not friends. They had a common want to end the war but after the war was over. Russia had plans of its own. In Macbeth, Macbeth must hind his thoughts of killing the king behind the wall of a kind and welcoming host. Russia must work with people they are not truly allies with in order to get own with their own business.

At the Potsdam Conference in 1945 President Truman, the new president of the united states was informed that they had officially detonated the first atomic bomb. This technology was the superweapon that would win them the war and potentially any other conflict from then on. Truman was able to use this as leverage against japan calling it a “powerful new weapon”. Because Truman didn’t trust his soviet partner he left the weapon unspecified. But having had a spy amongst the research team, Stalin already knew what it was the US possessed.

The 1950s and Macbeth have a lot of similarities in terms of our main idea of appearance vs reality. When we started this project I wasn’t too sure how we were going to be able to make connections between the two but after writing this post I can see many. I’m excited to continue comparing the two throughout this project. That’s what I learned this week!