pounded in the matter of Banquo because he has not taken any part in it and has felt resolve only insofar as it entailed giving a briefing to a couple of hired goons. The way he avidly asks for detailed information from the Murderer reflects concern about something he probably should have handled himself. Upon hearing of Fleance’s escape he suddenly goes weak at the knees: "Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect….now I am cabined, cribbed, confided, bound in To saucy doubts and fears." (3:4 22-26)We can see here that the questioning and hesitation he felt prior to killing Duncan is still here present in this instance after all. He is most concerned with the escaped Fleance because it now appears that the witches’ prediction that Banquo’s children will be kings might still happen. The "twenty trenched gashes" on his head still fresh Macbeth’s mind become part of the emotional aggregate of his conception of Banquo. His "gory locks" are seen by Macbeth because he knows how Banquo was killed and Shakespeare lets us know that he knows. In many productions such as the Trevor Nunn version for television, the ghost’s appearance is skipped altogether and the effect is a climactic one. Instead of identifying with his fear and alarm and seeing the shock of running away from Banquo’s pale and bloody corpse as in the Polanski film, we are instead privy only to Macbeth’s reaction to what in reality only he can see. We see the action from the perspective of the lords and Lady Macbeth. If fear is indeed a mechanism capable of maintaining an individual at bay from certain risks and dangers, why didn’t Macbeth’s alarm bells go off at an earlier time? We see that he is unable to clear himself of Banquo’s murder and even if we take the skeptic view that for him "having a good conscience is seen by him in terms of bodily hygiene" (McCarthy 161), then it has failed in his case. The p...
