Macbeth Group

Question:

krdl
krdl
Student
High School - 11th Grade

In "Macbeth", what does "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" REALLY mean?

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Posted by krdl on Wednesday January 7, 2009 at 9:14 AM and tagged with act 1 scene 1, fair is foul, foul is fair, macbeth, meaning, quotes, shakespeare, theme, witches.

Answers:

  1. dbrooks22
    dbrooks22 Teacher
    High School - 11th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    This is one of the last lines in Act 1 Scene 1 when the witches are foreshadowing events to come in the play. With these words, they are predicting the evil that will cloud Macbeth's judgments and that those judgments will appear to Macbeth as fair and just. This line also could refer to the witches believing that things most men consider to be foul and ugly are just and beautiful to them because they embody evil. This gives the reader insight into what actions the witches are going to encourage from Macbeth.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/act-summary-analysis

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    Posted by dbrooks22 on Wednesday January 7, 2009 at 9:31 AM


  2. robertwilliam

    eNotes Editor

    I wish I could answer that as straightforwardly as you ask it!

    What the line points to is the play's concern with the discrepancy between appearance and reality: that is, the difference between how someone seems and how someone is. It is a central concern of Shakespeare's, and obviously one that fits well with the medium of theatre, which relies on actors seeming to be something that they most definitely aren't.

    Macbeth, when he - almost - quotes the line on his first entrance, turns it into a remark which juxtaposes his victory with the weather:

    So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

    The weather is "foul" - bad - but the day (meaning "the outcome of the battle": hence "the day is yours") is "fair" - good, because they have won. The day is foul and fair at once.

    That said, none of that is really any help to us with the witches' enigmatic line, which says simply that bad is good, and good bad. It's rather like when Macbeth says that "nothing is, but what is not" - a difficult, knotty idea that, in the world of this play, nothing is the only something. Foul is fair. Fair is foul. It's a world where nothing is what it seems. It's a world where you're never sure whether it's a real dagger or an apparition, a mirage, or the ghost of Banquo. It's a world where you can't trust anyone. Not even the witches.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth-text/act-i-scene-i
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth-text/act-i-scene-iii

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Wednesday January 7, 2009 at 9:35 AM

  3. tamooney
    tamooney Student
    High School - 12th Grade

    "what's right is wrong and what's wrong is right."

    basically it means the words are opposite of there meaning.

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    Posted by tamooney on Wednesday January 14, 2009 at 4:44 PM