"Foul is fair and fair is foul" - A line uttered at the first part of the story by the three witches in one of the most amazing masterpieces, Macbeth. It's a simple and short quote, but means a lot. A lot of truthfulness and reality. Many of us find it difficult to understand, but I tried my best to explain what the line means to me.
For me, there may be two meanings for the line. The first is that change is permanent and inevitable. Change is within our world, within us. In the story, it means that someone may change for the better or for the worse. Someone may have a fair personality and attitude, but it will eventually change into a foul personality and attitude. Though humans want the change or not, they can't stop it to occur. This happened to Macbeth. At first, he is kind and kindhearted. But when his wife tempted him to do terrible things, he changed. He was aware of the change happening to him, but still, he continued. Because of it, he completely turned into a bad guy. He wanted to refuse, but he cannot. Deep inside, he feels guilt. The guilt of murdering innocent people just to have the throne he's been aiming for.
Another meaning of the quote is disguisement. It means that people who have foul appearance may have a fair attitude or personality. The ones who have fair appearance may have a foul personality or attitude. Throughout the story, fair appearances hid foul realities. When Macbeth started killing the innocent ones in the play, the people thought that he is the good and kind man, that he should be the king. His evil plans were hidden beneath his appearance. Thus, everyone believes that Macbeth's innocent. In the end, he paid the price of his selfishness.
In our life, the quote may be also applied. The people we chose to be friends with does not mean that they are the 'true' and 'real' ones. Sometimes, those people are not the same inside. They may show you good deeds, but you may never know what they are thinking of deep inside. We may also experience changes in our life. But no matter how good or bad the change is, we must still know what path should we take and be responsible enough to accept the change.
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