Was Macbeth Responsible For Banquo's Downfall

Not all sins are created equally; the amount of havoc they wreak upon one’s conscience can determine a person’s future. In William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, Macbeth commits a string of murders, none of which weighs as heavily on him or carries the severity of consequences as the murder of his friend, Banquo. If Macbeth did not kill Banquo, he could have left his destiny to fate, enjoyed his kingship, and allowed the witches’ prophesies to unfold naturally. However, the consequences of Banquo’s homicide left too much at risk for Macbeth to do so, leaving him no other option than to continue on his path of immorality. The remorse and anguish this bore upon him was so strong that it drove him to mental instability and ensured his downfall.

When Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost sitting at the dinner table, his guilty conscience leads him to practically confess to the murder in front of the Lords. Macbeth’s diminished state of mind can’t withstand the vision of Banquo’s ghost, and he cracks under the pressure. He starts to deny a murder that, at this point, he had yet to be suspected of, “Thou canst not say I did it, never shake/Thy gory locks at me,” (103). His words leave two of his dinner guests, Ross and Lennox, with the impression that what he was speaking of concerned Duncan’s assassination, and these ramblings later lead them to have a suspicion that Macbeth was involved. His diminished state of mind caused him to act irrationally, which raised people’s concerns about his

Upon seeing the ghost of Banquo sitting in his spot at the table, he takes it as an omen of his own death: If a dead man is sitting at one’s spot, then maybe the next death will be their own. Macbeth’s paranoia is too intense after killing Banquo to leave anything to chance. He resolves himself to take action to prevent any bad omen for coming true, “All causes shall give way. I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more./ Returning were as tedious as go o’er,” (William Shakespeare 109). Macbeth realizes that he is buried too deep to reverse course, allow chance to happen, and live with the results. It would be harder for him to go back to being a good person with a clean conscience, than it would be to continue on with his homicidal wrongdoings. At the point of no return, Macbeth can no longer connect with the personal attributes he once shared with Banquo: honesty, character, valor, and righteousness. By killing off Banquo, he also buried that part of himself. The tether to his conscience cut, he becomes unbalanced, leaving him susceptible to paranoia and irrational