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michelle-telford
michelle-tel...
Student
High School - 12th Grade

Who is blamed for Banquo's death [3.6.16ff], and how is it like Duncan's?

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Posted by michelle-telford on Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 4:28 PM and tagged with banquo, death, duncan, macbeth.

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  1. sagesource Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    Macbeth's cover story for the death of Banquo is that he was killed by his son Fleance. We do not know if Macbeth spread this story directly, but in Act III Scene 6 Lennox makes a sarcastic reference to it:

    And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late;
    Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
    For Fleance fled: men must not walk too late.

    Thus, the partial failure of Macbeth's plan -- in that Fleance, who was supposed to share his father's fate, instead escaped -- also made Fleance a natural suspect in the murder.

    The accident of Fleance's escape and flight makes the death of Banquo resemble that of King Duncan in that in both cases, Macbeth arranged the murders (personally or through intermediaries), and in both cases the surviving sons of the murdered men fled and thus brought suspicion on themselves, which Macbeth could exploit to help hide his role. It was a weak explanation at best, its weakness driven home by Lennox's narration, which explicitly links the two cases:

    Who cannot want the thought how monstrous
    It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
    To kill their gracious father? damned fact!...

    ....and I do think
    That had he Duncan's sons under his key--
    As, an't please heaven, he shall not--they
    should find
    What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.

    Lennox had initially thought that the king's servants had murdered him (Act II, Scene 3), and Macbeth had later put it about that this had been done on the instigation of the king's sons, who had fled. However, it seems to have been a case of "once bitten, twice shy" with Lennox. He cannot believe that those who happen to stand in Macbeth's way have been stricken with such a convenient epidemic of parricide, and is forced to look for other motives and other murderers than he might first have thought.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/banquo-character-analysis

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    Posted by sagesource on Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 8:26 PM