Ambition In Macbeth

Ambition is often the driving force in one’s life. It can have an extremely dominant impact on not only yourself, but also many people in your surroundings. You have the ability to control if the outcomes either have a lasting negative or positive effect. When a goal requires determination and hard work to complete, personal morals often take a back seat to the aspiration of accomplishing the goal. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it is clear that like many other great leaders, Macbeth exemplifies the necessary leadership virtue of ambition. Macbeth’s ambition does not just drive him to do great things. It in fact controls him. The playwright explores the idea of how an individual’s ambition can cause them to deceive others, make irrational

Macbeth was settled with his current position as Thane of Cawdor and didn't have any intentions of murdering his way up the hierarchy. Meanwhile his wife lady Macbeth seeked higher authority and was willing to do whatever she could to earn it. She first tells him that if he could lose his ambition so easily then his love for her must also be changeable. Once this doesn't fully convince Macbeth she proceeds onto questioning his masculinity and insults him by calling him a coward. Macbeth then feels the need to prove her wrong.

3. 157-159) Macbeth’s arrogance is made apparent with the immediacy of his thoughts of becoming king and it is clear that the supernatural has given him arrogant ambition as Macbeth is already beginning to think of how he will be crowned king. Macbeth eventually decides he will show his “Black and deep desires” (1. 4. 58) and murder Duncan, the current king of Scotland. This is a shift from Macbeth showing loyalty to Scotland and the king as he now has arrogantly, for the benefit of himself becoming king, murdered Duncan, the king of Scotland. Duncan was greatly admired and respected by the population of Scotland. Macbeth himself describes Duncan as “meek” (1. 7. 17) and being “so clear in his great office” (1. 7. 18). When Macduff first realizes the death of Duncan, he describes the scene as: “O horror, horror, horror!” (2. 3. 73) Macbeth acknowledges that the reaction to Duncan’s death would be mournful before murdering him: “Pity… / Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, / That tears shall drown the wind” (1.7. 21-25). However, Macbeth’s only goal is to become king, not to please the population of Scotland who admires their king greatly and sees him as a righteous person. After tempting Macbeth with the idea of becoming king, the supernatural gives Macbeth arrogant ambition, forcing him to contrast his loyal and courageous personality, which motivates him to kill Duncan.

Upon Malcolm’s appointment to Prince of Cumberland, Macbeth offers up the following aside: “The prince of Cumberland! That is a step / On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, / For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires” (I.iv.50-53). Herein, Macbeth relays what he views to be an important obstacle in the way of his own goal of becoming king while also hinting at the “black and deep desires” representative of his plan to become king in a rather unsavory manner.

Despite his fearless character in battle, Macbeth is concerned by the prophecies of the Witches, and his thoughts remain confused, both before, during, and after his murder of King Duncan. When Duncan announces that he intends the kingdom to pass to his son Malcolm, Macbeth appears frustrated. When he is about to commit the murder, he undergoes terrible pangs of conscience. Macbeth is at his most human and considerate when his masculinity is ridiculed and degraded by his wife. However, Macbeth has resolved himself into a far more stereotypical villain and asserts his manliness over that of his wife. His ambition now begins to spur him toward further horrible deeds, and he starts to disregard and even to challenge fate. Nevertheless, the newfound resolve causes Macbeth to move onward.

Thesis: The play Macbeth has themes seen today and can offer readers many beneficial experiences for when they grow older. Macbeth may have been written in 1606, but many of the themes can be seen in some current events. One major theme of Macbeth is ambition, which is also the fatal flaw of the main character, Macbeth. Macbeth has been ambitious since the beginning of the play.

Throughout time, greed can take shape of thoughts and emotions and guide down paths of ill will. The prophecy made by the three witches in Shakespeare’s, Macbeth, drives Macbeth upon a path of destruction to fulfill his destiny. The predictions made by the three witches show how one must not take every word sincerely and become overconfident, because assumptions can lead to misinterpretation, which in turn can lead to downfall. Macbeth and Banquo, the Thane of Lochaber, both receive prophecies from the three witches, which they each interpret differently (with a focus on Macbeth).

His morals lead him to do the things he feels is right. His ambition leads him to do whatever it takes to get to where he wants to be the quickest way possible. This is shown right after he meets the witches and starts contemplating killing Duncan. He says, “My thoughts whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is, but that is not” (I, iii, 138-141). Macbeth is thinking if he should or should not kill Duncan to become king.

In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is shown to be a brave, war hero, who fights for his country Someone who wouldnt dare commit murder against a good man. This is all shattered when his ambition overrides his sense of morality. His desire to be king was brought to light by the witches. They entertained the idea of him being King without it coming to him through blood. Although Macbeth was warned by Banquo as to the validity of the witches prophecies, after the prophecy of him becoming Thane of Cawdor comes true, he believes that he is destined to be king.

Unlike his capable and respected predecessor King Duncan, Macbeth is far more serious with his role as king. Duncan was loved and respected by all citizens of Scotland; he was their beloved ruler. Macbeth’s rise to power from the wake of his murder of Duncan only lined him up for failure. In pursuit of becoming a king Macbeth had delved into the depths of what it means to be a tyrant instead. The magnitude of Macbeth’s

The play Macbeth by William Shakespeare develops the theme of ambition throughout the play. First, Lady Macbeth goes to extreme measures to make sure Macbeth becomes king. This influences Macbeth to ambitiously kill others so he can become king. Macbeth’s killings cause Macduff and Malcolm to try to overthrow Macbeth because he can not be trusted if he becomes king.

Macbeth is shown to be unfit to be king by how easily Lady Macbeth manipulates him. This was on the night of Duncan's murder Macbeth had decided not to murder Duncan, this enraged Lady Macbeth to bring her to call him a coward and question his manhood “when you durst do it then you were a man” and that she then question her love for her “from this time such I account thy love” which shows she's willing to toy with their own love for each other to make Macbeth commit regicide for her. Lady Macbeth makes Macbeth feel as if by not committing this crime he is no longer in love with her and this allows her to manipulate him since he wants her to know that he loves her. This shows that Macbeth's morals conflict each other since he told himself that he would not kill Duncan “I am his kinsman and his subject” which shows that his love for lady Macbeth conflicts and how Macbeth must make a sacrifice of her love or Duncan's life. Within our world everyone makes hard decisions for themselves and that we must consider all of our options. Macbeth shows that he was willing to first of all

The first act of the play revolves around revealing Macbeth's prophecy and his potential method of achieving it. It is also the act in which Duncan bestows Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor and Prince of Cumberland. As the witches had just prophesized his becoming Thane of Cawdor and eventually king, this proves them correct. Macbeth takes this as meaning that it is prophesized for him to kill Duncan and become king. His reaction is as follows:

Too much ambition leads to greed, violence, and fear amongst people. In shakesperes tragedy Macbeth, many things are happening. Theentire story includes various unclear themes, some are harder to find, while others blatantly thrown right in the book. Ambition, a very common theme that presents itself in almost every act,.

He procedes to tell lady Macbeth that he will not go through with their plan of murder, but she manipulates and insults him until he changes his mind. Unlike Lady Macbeth, he still feels that by doing this he is betraying his king and his god. Macbeth deciding to kill Duncan impacts the play in a very large way, if Lady Macbeth had not been such a strong female figure he would not have been persuaded into murdering the king. Our perceptions of Macbeth change with this decision, because from the start of the play we’ve been told that macbeth is a noble, and brave warrior who would fight for his king, an example of this is “All’s to weak for brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name - disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, which smok’d with bloody