Banquet Scene of Macbeth

The Banquet scene takes place in Act III, Sc.iv. It is a very important scene because it catches the crisis in the play besides the supernatural element, which heightens the inner drama of conflict and dichotomy in the mind of Macbeth. 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 Macbeths fear controls him and will destroy his life. The scene opens with Macbeth's warm welcome to the lords. This composure is soon broken when Banquo's murderer appears. His guilt manifests itself as Banquo's ghost and sends him into a frenzy of apparently irrational behaviour. Lady Macbeth who is unable to see the ghost is unsupportive and embarrassed by his outburst. The banquet ends abruptly when Lady Macbeth feels obliged to ask the guests to leave. In order to satisfy the popular taste of the contemporary audience for melodramatic presentation of materials on the stage, Shakespeare presents a popular spectacle on the stage in the form of Banquo’s ghost in Macbeth, which subsequently has come to generate numerous debates. Whether the ghost of Banquo is subjective or objective is variously debated, On the stage the ghost is visible only to Macbeth and the audience, both of whom understand the cruelty involved in the act of murder, while the other characters are supposed to be unaware of its presence. In this perhaps it becomes possible to understand that 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. The arrival of Banquo as a ghost is necessary to expose this treacherous person. But before that, treachery has been highlighted in the act of offering the banquet. One may detect here an ironic reversal of the Last Supper offered by Christ, the Saviour. In fact, Macbeth’s act of murdering the king and thus violating the moral order is re-enacted in his consecration of such a sacred ritual as offering a communal feast, a ritual which has been looked upon as a gesture of faith and fraternal bond existing in the community everywhere and always in the human culture. Fittingly enough, the announcement of the banquet is disturbed and delayed by the arrival of the first murderer at the door. It should be noted here that Macbeth becomes alarmed at the sight of blood on the face of the murderer. It may be surmised whether the blood of Banquo, and the news of the escape of Fleance, leaving behind the possibility of the fulfilment of the Witches’ prophecy, unhinge his mind for the moment. He says himself, “…now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in Saucy doubts and fears.” But the dramatic irony becomes most effective when the audience watch the blood ghost of Banquo enter the stage and sit at Macbeth’s appointed chair and Macbeth, unaware of its presence, wishes: “Were the graced person of our Banquo present.” As he becomes aware of its presence, the whole scheme goes awry for Macbeth. Though the queen tries hard to stop the involuntary confessions, the situation goes beyond her control. Here the audience can notice that the lady is not the kind of stuff now as she had been before while goading Macbeth into murdering the king. Though she does not reflect upon herself, it can be said that right from this point the weakening of her character begins—though she succeeds in giving the correct psychological explanations behind her husband’s hallucinations: “This is the very painting of your fear”, the ‘strange’ will very soon infect her and bring in her nemesis. As Lady Macbeth pushes him towards the corner of the stage, Macbeth bursts in mixed reactions of fear, anger, irritation, uneasiness, submission, philosophical ruminations and apprehension of retribution. He now understands that in the moral universe, tumbled upside down by him, death to a person does not put an end to all, that dead men “ …rise again, With twenty mortal wounds on their crowns, And push us from our stools…” On the stage these reactions or confessions are made dramatically more effective by the loud choric answer of the lords: “Our duties, and the pledge”, an answer

which does not have any significance for Macbeth when sees the ghost re-enter the hall. From Macbeth’s confessions it becomes clear that he is afraid of the ghost because it bears the evidence of his gruesome murder, thereby exposing his hypocrisy and moral flaw. Macbeth now understands the truth that “…blood will have blood”, that is, murder begets murder; but he falsely draws the conclusion to his own purpose, that is, further murders will become necessary to protect his throne. The king of Scotland, however, talks of the dilemma of ambition, which was typical the Renaissance and is symptomatic of the modern age: “…I am in blood Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go ov’r:” And herein lies the tragic appeal of the drama to a modern reader/audience. It is in this scene that Macbeth emerges as a confirmed murdered with “strange things…in head”. In other words, the ghost of Banquo leads Macbeth unwittingly to his tragic downfall. 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. 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 ‘Macbeth is not merely a stage M device, but an integral part of the tragedy. The ghost in ‘Macbeth can be interpreted as the subjective projection of Macbeths own troubled sense of morality. The scene shows the inner cowardice of Macbeth. It also shows the guilt, fear and the corruption deep within Macbeth. The scene portrays the fears in Macbeth about the consequences of his sin. Shakespeare has written a masterful and dramatic scene, where the chaotic ending of the banquet is in total contrast to its orderly beginning, just as Macbeth is in total contrast to his former heroic self. The symbolism and irony of the banquet scene is the essence of the entire play. Macbeth in the beginning of the play had it all. He was a true man -- a brave warrior who had just won his greatest victory, saved Scotland from ruin, and was honored by the king. He had much to look forward to, until the three evil witches planted a seed of greed in his mind. Suddenly, he had thoughts of being more than just Thane of Cawdor. In weakness, he let his even greedier wife really talk him into murder. His conscience had warned him against the plot, but he was manipulated by Lady Macbeth in an unmanly manner to do it anyway. So by appearing like a man in his wife's eyes, he had, in reality, thrown away his manhood. In this scene, Lady Macbeth is urging her husband to again become a man, when she had earlier begged him to destroy his manliness by ignoring his conscience and committing the murder. But his conscience has now stolen his self-respect, forever. He is a lost soul. His wife cannot save him, as she tries to do in this scene; he can only save himself. Ironically, he has become too unmanly to do that, as clearly demonstrated in the banquet scene. As a result, from this point forward in the play, the audience will watch Macbeth as he totally unravels himself to ruin.