Banquet Scene

Context of the scene A banquet has been set. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth image as King and Queen of Scotland, followed by their court amongst the noblemen in attendance are Sir Ross and Sir Lennox. As Macbeth walks among the company, the first murderer appears at the doorway. Macbeth speaks to him for a moment, learning that Banquo is dead, simply Fleance has escaped. This scene, commonly k right awayn as the Banquet Scene, is quite an important scene in the play because its a turning point in Macbeths life. Indeed, this is simultaneously the high point of Macbeths reign and the beginning of his downfall.In a first part, well explore the duality of Macbeths character, and show how full of opponents this scene is. And in a second part, well see how this slowly becomes the beginning of the end for Macbeth. 1. Duality & Opposition This scene depicts a clear picture of Macbeths puzzling state of mind. We indeed get a lot of different reactions from him throughout this scene, reaction s that are just as sudden as they are opposite. First of all, the comer of the courtiers and the murderers almost simultaneously shows clearly the duality of Macbeth as King and criminal.It is as if these two sides of him are present in the same room, personified by the noblemen and the murderer. At first, Macbeth is cheery with the news he just received and the murderer, praising him and telling him he is the best, the nonpareil (without equal) moreover, Macbeths own supposed invincibility is shown I had else been perfect/ Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,/ As broad and general, as the casing air. He is the King and he clearly feels like nothing and nobody can reveal him anymore. He feels powerful.But on hearing the unwelcome news that Fleance has escaped his treachery, Macbeths language abruptly changes But now I am cabind, cribbed, confind, bound in / To chic doubts and worships. (2526). The alliteration of the hard c sounds reveals Macbeths sense of constraint, in c ontrast to the freedom and power which he claims to have enjoyed previously. It plunges him back into insecurity. Then Lady Macbeth intervenes and brings him back to causa and the banquet itself. Returning to his guests, Macbeth goes to sit at the head of the munificent table but finds Banquos ghost sitting in his chair.Horror-struck, Macbeth starts speaking nonsense to the ghost, which is infrared to the rest of the company Which of you have done this? The guests, confused by his behavior, think that he is ill What, my Good Lord? / Gentlemen rise, his Highness is not well. Lady Macbeth makes excuses for her married man, aspect that he occasionally has such visions my Lord is often thus/ And hath been from his youth/ she then tell them they should simply ignore Macbeth, because acknowledging his behavior would offend him The fit is momentary, upon a thought/ He will again be well. She then draws Macbeth aside and attempts to calm him by asserting that the vision is merely a pa inting of his fearjust like the air-drawn dagger he saw earlier (60). She once again questions his manhood to try to snap him out of his trance Are you a man? Ignoring her at first, Macbeth continues to address the ghost and charges him to speak but it disappears. After Lady Macbeth scolds him for being unmanned in folly (73), Macbeth finally recovers, returning to his guests and claiming that he has a strange infirmity which is nothing / To those that know me and which they should ignore (85).As with the ethereal dagger, the ghost of Banquo appears to come and go, propelling Macbeth into alternating fits of courage and despair. Lady Macbeth tries to soothe her husband. In contrast to the urgent horror of Macbeths addresses to the gruesome apparitions are moments of comparative calm. Each judgment of conviction the ghost vanishes, Macbeths relief is recorded in softer, more lyrical expression, for exemple when he says later on in the scene Can such things be / And overcome us like a summers cloud, / Without our special wonder? (112114).So the entire anatomical structure of this scene shows a man swinging from one state of mind to another, recalling the structure of the earlier dagger speech. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, remains unbroken in her judgment. Unlike Macbeth, she cannot see the ghost, and her tone is typically pragmatic and down-to-earth When alls done, / You look but on a stool. She appears to want to calm his rages, but individual retirement account simmers beneath her conciliatory words. It is unclear whether Banquos ghost really sits in Macbeths chair or whether the spirits 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(prenominal) of the apparitions that appear in the play, such as the floating dagger in bear 2, scene 1, and the unwashable blood that Lady Macbeth per ceives 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. So, serie of oppositions in Macbeths behavior itself in characters (Macbeth Lady Macbeth) and opposition reality/surnatural. 2. The downfall of King Macbeth The news of Fleances escape angers Macbeth if only Fleance had died, he muses, his throne would have been secure. Instead, hes now waiting for the time Fleance will come back to seek revenge The worm thats fled / Hath nature that in time will venom breed (2829). Throughout Macbeth, as in many of Shakespeares tragedies, the supernatural and the unnatural appear in grotesque form as omens of wickedness, moral corruption, and downfall.Macbeths bizarre behavior puzzles and disturbs his subjects, cocksure their impression that h e is mentally troubled. Despite the tentativeness and guilt she displayed in the previous scene, Lady Macbeth here appears surefooted and stronger than her husband, but even her attempts to explain away her husbands hallucination are ineffective when paired with the evidence of his behavior. The contrast between this scene and the one in which Duncans body was discovered is impingingwhereas Macbeth was once cold-blooded and confident, he now allows his anxieties and visions to get the best of him.The rich banquet, a symbol of great orderliness and generosity, now becomes a hellish put-on of itself. Instead of Macbeth sitting in the midst, dispensing his largesse as he would wish, his throne has been usurped by the bloody apparition of his former friend. Macbeths language reflects this change. The ghost, so hideous that it would churn up the devil, appears to have risen from a grave or a charnel-house. Three times Macbeth sees the ghost, and three times he appears to recover his senses. This alternating structure adds strongly to the impression of Macbeths loss of control.The short scene is dominated by the repeated word blood and by the idea that a tide of murder has now been initiated which Macbeth is powerless to stop. As noted previously, it is here that the downward spiral picks up pace. Macbeth, having harvested the benefits of his regicide, is beginning to see the down side of his actions. He is seen publicly as a madman, a fact reinforced by his wifes comments that the fit witnessed has been an illness of long standing. Macbeth also refers to tomorrow (133), indicating to the audience that there is more reckoning to come.Once he sees the ghost, his image as King is changed, tarnished with questions of rabidness. Macbethbegins to question his sanity, he cant believe his eyes, yet he cannot look away from Banquos ghost. In front of his dinner guests, he acts in an unstable, irrational manner. At this point, King Macbeth has lost some of the respect and admiration of his court. His subjects do not look at him the same way after this scene. Macbeth begins the slow descent into madness after this scene, losing his ability to control the future, something that he has killed to achieve.