Banquo - a Spiritual Force in Shakespeares Macbeth :: Macbeth essays

Banquo - a Spiritual Force in Macbeth Who cannot learn from Shakespeares Macbeth this moral lesson That criminal offence does not pay? And who can deny that the playwright created a phantasmal force in the play in the person of Banquo? This essay is his story. Lily B. Campbell in her volume of criticism, Shakespeares Tragic Heroes Slaves of Passion, discusses how fear enters the life of Banquo with the murder of Duncan and his cardinal attendants And as Lady Macbeth is helped from the room, we see fear working in the others. Banquo admits that fears and scruples succuss them all, even while he proclaims his enmity to treason. But Banquo fears rightly the petulance or hatred of the Macbeth who has power to do him harm. (222) In Shakespeare and Tragedy prank Bayley discusses Banquo shortly before his murder . . . like Banquo, who, in the tense instant before the murder, extinguishes in more forceful form the idea of sinister speculation and possibility as ranging in the spirit Merciful powers, concord in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose. II.i.7-9 At such a moment the activities of the mind become almost palpable and express themselves in bodily form, as they do in the other two mind tragedies. In the speech which he imagines the thoughts that may come to him when he goes to rest, Banquo pass on his sword to his son Fleance, and then - with a dream-like precision - hands everywhere his belt with its dagger too Hold, take my sword. Theres husbandry in heaven Their candles are all out. Take thee that too. (188-89) Clark and Wright in their Introduction to The round out Works of William Shakespeare comment that Banquo is a force of good in the play, situated in opposition to Macbeth Banquo, the loyal soldier, praying for restraint against evil thoughts which enter his mind as they had entered Macbeths, but which work no evil there, is set over against Macbeth, as virtue is set over against disloyalty. (792) In Fool s of Time Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy, Northrop Frye explains the rationale behind Banquos ghost in this play pull out for the episode of Hercules leaving Antony, where mysterious music is heard again, there is postal code really supernatural in Shakespeares tragedies that is not connected with the murder of the order-figures.