Just like already before, Shakespeare here again illustrates the horror of inner-worldly loneliness and menace through a projection in daily external life (Naumann, p.392, ll.25-33).
To a greater extent than with the products of his imagination beforehand, the imaginary ghost of Banquo affects, even represses Macbeth’s sense of reality in this scene since, ultimately, Macbeth is the only one who is able to see this vision. Therefore he is completely distraught because he doubts his own sanity. This visionary horror image – interpretable as a product of his tortured ‘conscience’ and of his imagination, or as the personified fear of the initiator of the cowardly murder – entirely captivates him, so that reality is here certainly also concealed almost completely by his imagination, at least as long as Banquo’s ghost is seemingly really existent for him. Being utterly beside himself and outright hysterical he conducts a dialogue with the product of his imagination, as if out of his mind, and screams, appalled, when he sees the ghost for the second time in a row: “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee. / Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; / Thou hast no speculation in those eyes / Which thou dost glare with.“ (Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4, l.91–94).
By means of this scene it becomes especially clear how he – due to his so strongly pronounced power of imagination – can work himself up so deeply into his delusions that he, in the process, hardly pays any attention to the entire environment around him and often even seems to completely forget about it during the moments of intensified activity of his imagination.
9.1.5 Macbeth’s Summoning of the Witches
The prophesying apparitions, that the witches let emerge from their cauldron right in the beginning of the fourth act (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, ll.68-123), also ultimately constitute – from today’s perspective – visions created by Macbeth’s imagination. Therefore they certainly know what he is thinking. When he says: “Tell me, thou unknown power -“, the first witch responds with: “He knows thy thought“ (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, l.68).
The incantation-scene clarifies once more that, for Macbeth, only the apparitions possess existence. During the process he is again – just like in the dagger-scene – in an trance-like state and is so agitated, so excited, about what the future holds for him that, in that moment, his visions represent sole reality for him. Since he lets himself be entirely consumed by the appearances of his imagination, the real happenings around Macbeth are here as well being almost entirely repressed by them. Being completely distraught when he sees the crowned ghost of Banquo appear before him as the ancestor of a long line of kings – with which he finally has to realize that the prophecy of the witches for Banquo in act one (see Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3, l.67) is going to come true in the near future – he now desperately cries: “Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down: / Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. […] What, will the line stretch out to th’ crack of doom? / Another yet? A seventh? I’ll see no more; […] Horrible sight. Now I see ‘tis true;“ (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, ll.111–121).
Macbeth dreams of a world in which there are no murders, in which all crimes are forgotten, all dead are buried once and for all and in which everything can begin anew (Kott, p.122, l.3-6), but during the appearance of Banquo’s ghost he has to recognize that this is not the case: “The times have been, / That when the brains were out, the man would die, / And there an end. But now they rise again […] And push us from our stools.“ (Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4, l.76–80). He dreams of the end of this nightmare in which he finds himself, but becomes more and more of a slave to it (see Kott, p.122, l.6-7).
His impatience of wanting to know everything else concerning his future (Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4, l.132-133: “More shall they speak: for now I am bent to know / By the worst means, the worst;“) has now both destroyed his hopes of being able to refute the witches’ prophecies directed towards Banquo – since, ultimately, with the help of the visions that they evoked in him, they have shown him that Banquo is actually going to be the ancestor of an entire royal dynasty one day – as well as banished his fears concerning the future (see Palmer, p.156, l.24f.). Now he can already mentally prepare for his imminent demise.