.
Duncan's description of Macbeth's, found in Act one, Scene six, is also very ironic. Duncan says of it, "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air / Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses." This castle will be the place of Duncan's untimely death, yet in his ignorance he describes it as "pleasant." Duncan goes on to describe Lady Macbeth as his "Fair and noble hostess."(Act1, Scene vi) This drips of irony, since it is Lady Macbeth who fully convinces her husband Macbeth to murder Duncan. This is yet another example of contrast between appearance and reality.
Later, when Macbeth is asked by Banquo if he still ponders the witches prophecy, Macbeth replies: "I think not of them; / Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, / We would spend it in some words upon that business, / If you would grant the time."(Act II, Scene i) This is an outright lie told by Macbeth. Macbeth is infatuated with the thought of becoming king, and dwells on the notion of becoming king. Macbeth appears to be unfazed by the prophecies so that when Duncan is murdered he will seem inculpable.
During Macbeth's dagger soliloquy, he is overcome with a false vision, as the following quotation supports: "Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. / I have thee or, and yet I see thee still. / Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / to feeling as to sight? Or art though but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"(Act II, Scene i) The dagger is a hallucination, seen only by Macbeth, and demonstrates the difference in appearance to reality in the play, because Macbeth is seeing only a figment of his imagination due to his conscious. This quote is defines the theme of appearance versus reality. Although to Macbeth's guilt-wrought mind there is a dagger in front of him, in actuality there is nothing before him.