Thematic Claim: Greed for power may drive certain people to insanity.
Macbeth:
No sane person goes on a killing spree, and it is greed for power that drives Macbeth to the murders of many. In the story, Macbeth begins as the Thane of Glamis. He is already a large contributor in battle and this leads him to success early on in the plot. However, he doesn’t realize that he wants more power until he is told prophecies by three witches, and his wife- Lady Macbeth manipulates him. In the prophecies, he is told that he will become Thane of Cawdor, and then King. Macbeth is named Thane of Cawdor by King Duncan after the battle in the beginning of the story, so part of the prophecy comes true right away. It is not until Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth about the prophecies through a letter, that Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to kill King Duncan to obtain the throne. King Duncan is Macbeth’s first murder to begin his reign for power. He is now throned King, but his greed for power doesn’t stop there. Macbeth kills anyone who he feels threatens his title as King. He has loyal companion Banquo killed because he feels Banquo might know that he killed King Duncan-if Banquo told others, this would lead to the de-throning of Macbeth as king- taking away his power. Insanity in Macbeth truly shines through when he kills Banquo, because of their close relationship. Banquo was nothing but loyal to Macbeth throughout the story. As the plot thickens, the witches continue to tell prophecies to Macbeth. One of them being that he should fear Macduff. Macbeth then kills Macduff’s family as he fears Macduff will somehow dethrone him. As people who were once loyal to Macbeth betray him, Macbeth continues to strive for power as king, until he is defeated by Macduff. Ultimately, Macbeth begins the story as a noble, respected Thane, but his ambition and greed for power as King/staying King leads him to insanity full of murder and deception, until his death.
Lady Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth reveals her greed early on in the tragedy of Macbeth. She convinces Macbeth to kill King Duncan in order to fulfill the prophecy that the witches gave Macbeth (becoming king). Her manipulation of Macbeth shows how she supports murder in order to obtain more
Ambition is what motivates people to achieve a certain thing in their life. However, many fail if their ambition is too big and unreasonable. This is definitely the case for Macbeth in the William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Macbeth's ambitious causes him to disregard his loyalty to Duncan. Moreover, Macbeths desires lead him to be immoral, going to extremes in order to achieve success. Ultimately, Macbeths deep aspirations for power demonstrates being over ambitious will end in disaster. Therefore, in the play Macbeth, Macbeths ambition leads him to corrupt his morality, resulting in his downfall
Macbeth murders many to gain power. He causes the suffering of families and murders former friends. The violence starts with the murder of the king, Duncan, who’d trusted and honored Macbeth; Macbeth kills him to gain the position of king. Duncan’s death is the catalyst; Macbeth subsequently begins to use violence as a regular way to attain power. He murders his former friend, Banquo, refusing to accept that Banquo’s sons will be kings as prophesized by the witches. He says in regard to the prophecy, “Rather than so, come fate into the list, / And champion me to th' utterance.” Instead of accepting fate, he challenges the prophecy and orders Banquo’s death. His final homicide is the massacre of Lord Macduff’s family. When Macduff hears of the brutal slaughter, he cries, “That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on, / And would not take their
In this world, one of the strongest human drives seems to be the desire for power. In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Thane Macbeth seeks to gain power over Scotland. Through Macbeth’s search for power, he must choose between what is morally right or his inner motives. Macbeth gains power over others through the murders of King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff’s entire family along with his servants. After each murder, Macbeth becomes more confident in his search to gain power.
Firstly, Macbeth and Mae both display that their ambition leads to their downfall due to the greed that took over their character and motivated them to continue. In Macbeth, Macbeth is thinking of killing Duncan but is still unsure about the whole idea. He says, " I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th' other." (Shakespeare 1.7.25-28). Macbeth has just explained that there is no real justification for the crime because Duncan is his relative, a good king, and, furthermore, a guest at his castle. This quote here is describing how Macbeth realizes that he is being overly greedy and that if you are too greedy, there is a very high chance that you'll end up in a very bad situation.
Macbeth, from Shakespeare’s world renowned Macbeth, serves as an example as the type of person who has their sight set on power and control and is willing to let their unchecked ambition get ahead of them. Macbeth had such a strong desire for power that he was even willing to commit the evil act of murdering King Duncan. Macbeth has chosen the path of evil, which for Macbeth this includes murdering loyal friends, scheming with apparitions and witches, and even murdering sleep, but now there is no turning back.
Oftentimes, to further their lifestyles, people hide behind a fictitious version of themselves. Eventually, one finds their mind twisting and turning, detracted and dismembered, unable to bear the gravity and distress of their conflicting personas. Take, for example, the character Macbeth in the play Macbeth, who to remand power reveals his true unstable persona while continuing to maintain a virtuous one to the public which results in a tyrannical dominance of his instability. Because of Macbeth’s actions, Scotland is thrown into chaos when his unstable personality completely dominates him and leads to his demise at the hands of rebels affected by his greedy and indecent actions. In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare uses light and darkness imagery to convey how Macbeth’s ambition and greed led to corruption, signifying the negative societal effects tyrants have because of their greed and ambition.
Merriam Webster defines greed as a selfish desire to have more of something; and ambition as a desire to be successful, powerful, or famous. Both of these occur in Macbeth as individual, caused by a group of people other than Macbeth, or caused by natural occurrences. But, Macbeth utilizes both of these in order to keep him, or put him, into a higher state of power. So, Macbeth by Shakespeare, uses the theme of “the fine line between ambition and greed” to help the main character, Macbeth, use a combination of outside natural ambitious occurrences and internal greedy forces to transform him from a position of high power to a position of low power.
Greed and ambition are traits that everyone has. Depending on how much of that greed and ambition the person has will determine their outcome. Greed is the intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food and ambition is a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. Ambition can be seen as a good thing when used toward good goals. For example, a student being ambitious to get an A-plus on a test. Greed is intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food, therefore, when combined with ambition, it can lead toward evil personalities. Which is displayed in the play “Macbeth” in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, their desire to kill Duncan and become king and queen. However, their plan quickly unraveled and lead to Macbeth’s downfall. The person that was responsible for Macbeth’s downfall was Macbeth himself due to his inability to say “no” to Lady Macbeth and……...
Ambition and greed have always been defined as the deep intense and selfish desire in the person's mind. Throughout the history and myth that have been written, we can see the downfall of greats just base on that greed of wanting for the power and wealth. In a Greek Mythology "Helen of Sparta" there is a beauty women named Helen of Troy. In the myth she is the daughter of the Greek god Zeus and Leda. She was the most beautiful women in the world. Who married to King Menelaus of Sparta, but eloped with the Prince Paris of Troy, because that she is resulting the Trojan War which white out the empire. Her beauty cause the fight between the men and led the empire to fall, but what is truly cause of the fall? Was it the greed or ambition of wanting? Was it her beauty? Her voice of word? Or is it something else? In the Shakespeare's play Macbeth, we can see the true reasons of Macbeth’s downfall, it was not only because of his ambition, but also because his wife Lady Macbeth’s words and evil plan to get the him the power of crown. Which shows that Lady Macbeth is most responsible for the Macbeth’s downfall because the she used her influence and ambition to gain power, that which eventually led to the Macbeth’s downfall, but many other people have argued that she is not the only one who can be blame for the downfall. It was Macbeth who chose to take that action to kill King Duncan. In fact of that, her continued judgement of his manly character forced him to take action to kill
The choices that Macbeth makes during his pursuit for power ultimately result in his descent into madness. This all begins when he meets the witches at the beginning of the play. “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth! That shalt be king hereafter!” (1.3.51-53). By choosing to believe what the witches preach, Macbeth takes destiny into his own hands. Every decision he makes from this point on is so that he can take over the kingship and retain this position. The witches drive Macbeth into creating his own destiny by planting the idea that he is going to be the king into his head. Once he gets it in his head that he is going to be the king, he will stop at nothing to make it happen. After Macbeth has killed King Duncan and become the king, he still has the threat of Banquo’s line of kings looming around him. Even though Banquo is one of Macbeth’s friends he decides Banquo needs to be killed. Macbeth is so controlling of his own destiny that he doesn’t want to leave anything up to chance. He won’t leave his fate in the hands of anyone else. He decides that he is going to kill people in order to solidify his kingship. “So is he mine (enemy), and in such bloody distance that every minute of his being thrusts against my near’st of life.” (3.1.132-234).
“I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on th’ other‘.” William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ explores the central themes of guilt, ambition and power. Yet Shakespeare’s intentions were to suit the expectations and knowledge of the audience in the Elizabeathan society.
Macbeth is a play that entails the journey of Macbeth as he becomes the King of Scotland but will face many moral dilemmas and challenges along the way. William Macbeth uses symbolism of blood, the invisible dagger, and the witches to illustrate guilt and the evil of the human soul when Macbeth goes against his values and beliefs. In the first place, the blood that is on Macbeth’s hands after killing King Duncan represents his guilt about having just committed the act of murder. Macbeth himself describes how his actions can never be forgiven by himself or God and questions if “all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/Clean from [his] hand?” (Crowther 2.2.61-62). Macbeth describes how even all the water from
Greed is an external and internal factor that causes the downfall of Macbeth and heavily influences his perception of reality and his behaviors. Lady Macbeth was the external spark that led to the ultimate demise of Macbeth as a person and as a king. Once he murdered Duncan, his fear of losing power and respect caused the internal destruction of his mind. Greed that was so heavily influenced by his wife, the witches, and his mind changed Macbeth from being a virtuous heroic man to becoming the villain at the end of the play. The witches prophecy was an external factor in influencing Macbeth’s desire to be king. These influencers overlap as internal and external factors throughout the play.
This angers Macbeth and enables him to follow Lady Macbeth's scheme to kill the King easier. Macbeth's first murder is definitely a trying experience for him. However, as the play progresses, killing seems easy and the only solution to maintain his reign of the people of Scotland. Macbeth becomes increasingly ambitious as the play goes on. The witches prophecies and Lady Macbeth's influence intensifies his ambition and drives Macbeth to obtain and maintain his title of Scotland by whatever means, even murdering his best friend, Banquo. "Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, ...no son of mine succeeding. If't be so, for Banquo's issue have I filed my mind; For them the gracious Duncan I have murder'd; ...To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! (Act III. sc.I) At this point Macbeth's passion becomes more and more extreme to the point where no one stands in his way. His greed, violence, and hunger for power drastically declines his character. The witches prophecy, Lady Macbeth's influence, and Macbeth's own ambition all contribute greatly to his deterioration of character which results in his downfall, which was death. All the causes link to one another. If it wasn't for Macbeth's strong will and passion, Macbeth would still be his ordinary self. Because of this, Macbeth's curiosity of possibly becoming king was brought out which led to Lady Macbeth's controlling influence. Macbeth's ambition then builds and causes him to commit a
From the beginning, Lady Macbeth is seen as greedy and prepared to do what her husband will not, in order to get what she believes they are destined for. She is more