Quote Analysis

As Macbeth and Lady Macbeth enter as king and queen, Lady Macbeth publicly praises Banquo's importance, saying that forgetting to invite him to the feast would have been a serious error.

Lady Macbeth describes Banquo's absence as a 'gap,' a spatial void that would mar the feast's completeness. The word is jarring because it shifts the register from social courtesy to architectural flaw, as if Banquo were a structural element holding up their legitimacy. This reveals the performative anxiety beneath their new power: they need Banquo's presence to look like legitimate rulers, even as they plan his death.

Support a thesis that the Macbeths' public performance of hospitality is inseparable from their paranoia—this line shows they rely on the very people they fear to validate their stolen crown.