“Macbeth” is a tragedy written by the dramatist, William Shakespeare, in which Three witches

tell the Scottish general Macbeth that he will be King of Scotland. Encouraged by his wife,
Macbeth kills the king, becomes the new king, and kills more people out of paranoia. Civil war
erupts to overthrow Macbeth, resulting in more consequent death. Shakespeare makes uses
techniques, including dramatic irony, foreshadowing, and assonance, to explore the various key
themes in this play, such as greed and guilt. As this play was written for king James the first, an
avid believer in ghosts and metaphysical ideas, the play also makes reference to supernatural
worlds and their powers. There are many key scenes in Macbeth that show these themes and
techniques. One such key scene is Act 3, Scene 4.
Act 3, Scene 4 represents a turning point in the play. At a meal attended by numerous
aristocracy, Macbeth experiences a vision of Banquo's ghost. After the witches prophesied that
Macbeth would become king and yet that Banquo's progeny would rule, Macbeth killed
Banquo, his former friend. Lady Macbeth tries to retain Macbeth’s perceived sanity, as he
speaks to the ghost of Banquo, who has settled in his chair. When the spirit leaves, she talks to
her husband and attempts to reassure him. However when the ghost reappears Macbeth
speaks to it once more, in an increasingly fanatical and unhinged fashion.
The audience witnesses Banquo being killed by Macbeth's hired assassins in Act 3, Scene 3. The
trio of assassins confers among themselves and wait for Banquo and his son in a nearby area
outside of the palace. Arriving to the palace for the meal are Banquo and his son Fleance. With
the intention of killing both the assassins attack. They are successful in killing Banquo, but
Fleance flees when his father tells him to run.
When Macbeth learns that Banquo's son Fleance managed to escape from the assassins who
killed Banquo, this is what he says.
"Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,/Whole as the marble, round as the rock,/As
broad and general as the casing air:/But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in/To saucy
doubts and fears."
Because the witches had predicted that Banquo's descendants would rule as kings, Macbeth
desired the death of both Banquo and Fleance and so ordered as such as mentioned previously.
Being king, Macbeth would prefer his own heirs ascend to the throne and also feels threatened
by the prediction as it creates uncertainty. Using the justification that Banquo's descendants
cannot become kings if Banquo has no descendants, he attempts to stop the prophecy by
having Banquo and Fleance slain. But Fleance gets away, and Macbeth loses the peace of mind
he believes Fleance's death would have given him. The witches' predictions may yet come to
pass while Fleance is still living. If Fleance had been killed by the murderers, Macbeth would
have felt safe and relieved. As things stand, he's fearful and doubtful. His use of stark
contrasted images is striking. It makes sense to compare marble and rock to a firm, stable
stance. The opposite image of the air represents freedom from worry, just like other types of
freedom. His "doubts and fears," however, have confined him to a cramped, claustrophobic
space rather than leaving him exposed and vulnerable. This novel approach to picturing
uncertainty and terror highlights how Macbeth has closed off these feelings in his own
thoughts.
This is an inviolable example of his diminishing mental state and is very impactful to the rest of
the play.
"Thou canst not say I did it: never shake/Thy gory locks at me."
(Macbeth) Here, Macbeth speaks to Banquo's ghost, who is seated in his chair. It's possible that
Macbeth is trying to disregard his guilt, or he could be being more literal in that he's telling
Banquo what Macbeth did because he's dead. But as he speaks, Macbeth runs the risk of
admitting his own guilt. In front of his guests, he seems to be talking to no one, which causes
Lady Macbeth to worry that he might confess his misdeeds during his digressions. At this point,
Macbeth's conscience is really starting to weigh heavily on him. When he sees Banquo's ghost,
he has just learned that Banquo has been slain. The others begin to wonder why Macbeth is
acting strangely when he speaks to the ghost, but only he can see it and Macbeth realizes this.
Ross mentions that Macbeth must not be feeling well right away, urging everyone to get up and
go home. However, Lady Macbeth tries to put her husband's needs ahead of her own. She
informs all that Macbeth has experienced these outbursts. "from his youth”.
Ultimately, the ghost's apparition and reappearance overwhelm Macbeth. Lady Macbeth ejects
the dinner guests out of genuine fear that her husband might lose control and confess. Given
Macbeth's peculiar actions, the guests kindly express their concern for his well-being. They are
undoubtedly perplexed. A more serious question about Macbeth's sanity might have been
asked by the guests, but Lady Macbeth's quick thinking causes the guests to overlook it.
Macbeth is not only losing the battle mentally but these outbursts caused by his guilty
conscious risk Macbeth losing respect and perceivably lose the ability to effectively rule by the
nobles. He begins to except that most are against him but still holds onto the predictions of the
witches as absolute truth, this scene and others before it lead to Macbeths over confidence in
the predictions and ultimately his destruction by them.
In private, Lady Macbeth chastises her husband for losing control in front of their guests. In the
same way that he saw a dagger right before killing King Duncan, the dagger that leads him into
committing the murder he was so hesitant of committing in prior scenes she tells him he is just
seeing things. This is noteworthy since it is uncommon for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to
disagree with one another.
"This is the very painting of your fear:/This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,/Led you to
Duncan....Why do you make such faces? When all's done,/You look but on a stool."
At the banquet, Lady Macbeth is making fun of Macbeth for his claims to have seen Banquo's
ghost. The ghost is obviously a fabrication, a representation of Macbeth's fear and guilt over
the crime he has committed. He claimed to have experienced a similar hallucination when he
was plotting King Duncan's murder, according to Lady Macbeth. Consequently, Macbeth's
hallucinations serve as a metaphor for his internal struggle. The fact that Lady Macbeth's
reproach turns tragically ironic later in the play makes what she says here significant. She is
upset with her husband in this scene because he appears afraid of something she thinks is just a
figment of his imagination. She chastises him for having a fear of nothing. However, Macbeth's
actions are a manifestation of his guilt over killing Banquo, his closest friend. When he imagines
his former friend's bloodstained ghost taking up his seat at the banquet table, he reacts in an
incredibly uncharacteristic way—by showing his terror and horror.
Act 5, scene 1, on the other hand, sees Lady Macbeth give in to the visions. She imagines that
her hands are covered in blood and is overcome with regret and guilt. She rubs them
repeatedly in an attempt to get rid of what she believes are bloodstains from Duncan's murder
from her hands.
“Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power
to account? --Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”
She constantly has a candle with her and sleepwalks. She eventually kills herself because she is
so terrified and overcome by these visions that she loses all hope and sanity.
The ghost is a representation of Macbeth's guilt for killing Banquo and Duncan. By assassinating
King Duncan, Macbeth has fulfilled his ambition to rule Scotland as its new king. Nevertheless,
Macbeth does not feel safe or secure despite having killed Banquo, whom he saw as a threat to
his authority, and accomplishing his original goal. He grows more afraid and guilty the more
violence he does. This all comes to a head when Banquo's ghost appears. Despite his insistence
to the contrary, Macbeth is afraid. The gathered aristocrats also witness Macbeth's agony and
terror for the first time, despite being unaware of its source. Even his confidante and fellow
conspirator Lady Macbeth is taken aback. From this point on in the play, Macbeth's situation
worsens, and his mental state deteriorates. Following the departure of the ghost and his guests,
Macbeth muses that although his guilt is catching up with him, it is too late to turn around at
this point.
"I am in blood/Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more/Returning were as tedious as going
o'er."
This metaphor regards Macbeth finding himself in a continual series of murders in hopes to
prevent his own, the use of it is very powerful as it holds true for the rest of the play, it explains
why Macbeth continues his plot to the very end of his life.
“Macbeth” is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare that has many key scenes and turning
points, one of which is Act 3 Scene 4, Shakespear uses metaphors and foreshadowing along
with other techniques to make this scene impactful and influential in the play as a whole, this
scene is the most influential in showing Macbeths continual mental decline from the murder of
Duncan to end of the play, along with his perverse reasoning for why he must continue
following these ambitions caused by the predictions of the Hags. Macbeth was overtaken by
these predictions, even if he knew they lead to acts with no justification- “I have no spur to
prick the sides of my intent but only vaulting ambition” - They still led to his untimely demise.