3. • The Banquet Scene opens at the royal hall of Scotland with
the banquet ready celebrating Macbeth’s coronation. It is
very important and simultaneously the high point of
Macbeth’s reign and the beginning of his downfall . it shows
us how Macbeth's fear controls him and will destroy his life.
Moreover, his fear does not end by death of Banquo because
his fear inside himself and will grow.
• When Macbeth kills the king and takes the throne, Banquo—
the only one aware of this encounter with the witches—
reserves judgment for God. He is unsure whether Macbeth
committed regicide to gain the throne, but muses in a
soliloquy that "I fear / Thou play'dst most foully for 't". He
offers his respects to the new King Macbeth and pledges
loyalty.
4. • Later, worried that Banquo's descendants and not his own
will rule Scotland, Macbeth sends some murderers to kill
Banquo and his son Fleance because he cannot bear the idea
that Banquo's sons should be kings. During the melee,
Banquo holds off the assailants so that Fleance can escape, but
is himself killed. Only he has one soliloquy after the crime to
praise Banquo as friend and how only he kills him to keep his
position. The ghost of Banquo later returns to haunt Macbeth.
A terrified Macbeth sees him, while the apparition is invisible
to his guests. He appears again to Macbeth in a vision granted
by the Three Witches, wherein Macbeth sees a long line of
kings descended from Banquo.
5. • Macbeth’s bizarre behavior puzzles and disturbs his subjects,
confirming their impression that he is mentally troubled.
Despite the guilt, Lady Macbeth here appears surefooted and
stronger than her husband, but even her attempts to explain
away her husband’s “hallucination” are ineffective when
paired with the evidence of his behavior.
• The contrast between this scene and the one in which
Duncan’s body was discovered is striking—whereas Macbeth
was once cold-blooded and surefooted, he now allows his
anxieties and visions to get the best of him.
6. • It is unclear whether Banquo’s ghost really sits in Macbeth’s
chair or whether the spirit’s presence is only a hallucination
inspired by guilt. Macbeth, of course, is thick with
supernatural events and characters, so there is no reason to
discount the possibility that a ghost actually stalks the halls.
Some of the apparitions that appear in the play, such as the
floating dagger in Act 2, scene 1, and the unwashable blood
that Lady Macbeth perceives on her hands in Act 4, appear to
be more psychological than supernatural in origin, but even
this is uncertain. These recurring apparitions or
hallucinations reflect the sense of metaphysical dread that
consumes the royal couple as they feel the fateful force of
their deeds coming back to haunt them.
7. • Banquo’s ghost plays an important and integral role in the development of
the tragic action of the play and in bringing about the nemesis of Macbeth.
• In fact Shakespeare's world of spirit appears as the physical embodiment of
the images conjured up by lively fancy and the presence of the apparition is
felt only by those who have an excitable imagination.
However, the ghost in the Banquet scene of ‘acbeth is not merely a stage
M
device, but an integral part of the tragedy. The ghost in ‘acbeth can be
M
interpreted as the subjective projection of Macbeth's own troubled sense of
morality.
This scene has been preceded by the murder of Banquo. After his murder,
feasting at Macbeth's palace is significantly emphasized. Hospitality is
bounteous. But the appearance of the murderer withdraws Macbeth's
attention. The murderer appears with ominous tidings helping to set the
tempo of the play. In reply to his:
"My lord, his throat is cut
That I did for him"- Macbeth replies in a tone naively innocent irony:
"Thou art the best o'th'...
