Just as Banquo’s Ghost returned to haunt Macbeth’s dinner, now Epstein’s ghost continues to hover over Trump’s Oval Office.
******************
[I]t’s difficult to muster any sympathy for the Mar-a-Lago Macbeth, as Epstein’s ghost plagues him like a sleazier Banquo.
*****************
I get why several commentators compare Trump’s haunting by Epstein to Macbeth’s haunting by Banquo: Two powerful men, in hard-fought, seemingly secure possession of political dominance, cannot escape, and eventually are perhaps brought low by, the return of the repressed. Their past deeds rear up, eerily reincarnate manifestations, for the world to see.
Yet the second writer’s use of the word ‘sleazier’ points to problems with the comparison. Because after all Banquo is a moral exemplar, come to torture Macbeth with guilt over his crimes, while Epstein is a moral catastrophe, a ghost vindictively gleeful at Trump’s entrapment by Epstein’s degeneracy.
UD suggests that another ghost story – the Henry James fiction “The Turn of the Screw” – might be a better comparison. For the primary ghost here – Peter Quint – seems not only evil, but evil in a very Epstein way: He seduces children. The plot of the James work revolves around the narrator’s failed effort to protect children from sexually threatening adults; and what better echo of the sorry tale of the world’s failure to protect Epstein’s victims? Or of Trump’s failing effort to protect himself?