Lady Macbeth's Ambition Essay

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

Timothy Leary once said, "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition" (Peters 175). But is this true in the case of the classic play Macbeth? In Macbeth it seems to be, that Macbeth the protagonist of the play is influence by Lady Macbeth's ambition. Could this be an exception or was Lady Macbeth lying when she ask to be equal to a man so she could commit the murder (1.5.33.45-61). To understand one must look deeply into the plot and many themes of Macbeth. William Shakespeare uses ambition among other things to imply may different ideas. Thus, Macbeth's downfall is a direct cause of Lady Macbeth's goading and ambition.

The play Macbeth written by William Shakespeare is based upon old Scotland and this is used as the general time frame. During this time, Monarchy still existed and Scotland is in war with Whales. There are many emotions that arise throughout the play, but the most important of all is ambition. “Ambition is the desire for personal achievement. Ambitious persons seek to be the best at what they choose to do for attainment, power, or superiority” (“Ambition”). The motif of ambition in the play is that being ambitious leaves one blind to certain areas and can drive one insane to reach the intended goal. Numerous characters that showed this trait throughout the play were Banquo, Macduff, Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth.

In play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare’s most dominant and frightening female characters, known for her ambitious nature. As Macbeth’s wife, her role is significant in his rise and fall from royalty. During Shakespearean times, women were regarded as weak insignificant beings that were there to give birth and look beautiful. They were not thought to be as intelligent or equal to men. Though in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the highest influence in Macbeth’s life. Her role was so large; in fact, that she uses her position to gain power, stay strong enough to support her unstable Lord, and fails miserably while their

After murdering King Duncan, Macbeth returns ashamed of what he had done and becomes weak and morose. Lady Macbeth remains as bold and cold-hearted as she was at the moment she plotted to kill the king, but it was obvious that it would only be a matter of time before all of that bravery faded away and guilt would overcome her. She realizes that Macbeth is at one of the lowest points of his life and tries to give him that same sense of boldness that she has as she tries to cover up his weaknesses. Macbeth had a lot on his conscience that shortly after Banquo had been killed, he believed he saw the ghost of who was once his friend. No one else sees this apparition but Macbeth speaks to it as if it was

In the play The Tragedy of Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth was an important character. She was the wife of the King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth had first come off as a forceful character but as time passed, her weaknesses were shown.

In Macbeth ambition plays a huge role in character devolvement. Ambition affects four of the major characters. The characters are Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Malcom, and Banquo. The sisters are the source of Ambition. It is as if they control ambition. The ambition the sisters’ control is negative ambition. Ambition is, wanting to have more then you have and wanting it now.

Right after he murders the king, Macbeth immediately feels guilty when he goes to tell his wife. He shows obvious nervousness and anxiety when coming back to see Lady Macbeth and even when she welcomes him and asks him to mask the evidence, he says, "I’ll go no more: I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on ’t again I dare not" (Act 2, Scene 2). This evidence is very powerful because Lady Macbeth shows extreme pride in her husband for going through with the murder; and yet, as she commends him, Macbeth is solemn and full of disbelief. Not only does Macbeth feel bad for what he did, but shows lack of extraneous emotion towards his wife, even in her highest of praises—a foreshadowing of what's to come. Additionally, with the gradual loss of emotion through Macbeth's guilt and grief, he shows the zenith of his own lack of morality; he doesn't react whatsoever when his own wife dies. As Macbeth transgresses moral codes of all kinds and murders even more people, he shows an especially numb side of him when Lady Macbeth's death is told to him and he responds, "she should have died hereafter" (Act 5, Scene 5). Though a cold-hearted and ignorant response may establish itself as corrupt, it's really a sign of a total lack of care. Macbeth has undeniably shifted in emotional responsivity as in the beginning, he showed immediate guilt and fear to a death; but now, feels indifference and ignorance to death, even to that of which would

The determination to achieve and ambition are keys to a successful life. However, one of Shakespeare’s major themes in his play Macbeth is too much ambition ultimately brings ruin. When ambition goes unchecked, there is corruption of natural order. This theme of ambition can best be explained by analyzing the motives of Lady Macbeth, the witches, as well as Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth is lead to her own downfall and suicide as she becomes insane. She feels guilty for convincing Macbeth to kill Duncan. She develops a deranged mind which would later convince her to commit suicide due to this guilt. Lady Macbeth’s mindset and its changes are due to “the evil [Lady Macbeth] was so willing to accept betrays her...and produces only anguish in place of the rewards she had envisioned... she also loses the access to power that had motivated her in the first place.

Although the ideas are given by the witches and Lady Macbeth, it is still Macbeth own decision to either act on these ideas or just wait for the fate to just let it happen eventually. Macbeth pick the first choice and start to act his future on his own and will overcome any one who will stop him to achieve the title of “king’. However, his ambition, becomes his only motive, not thinking about the effects of his own actions. As the play flows, Macbeth is slowly getting impaired and controlled by his own ambition. He become more aggressive and act his actions as soon as possible, destroying anyone on his path to becoming the King including King Duncan, his leader and Banquo, his best friend. He does not realize that his actions are actually leading

Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy, Macbeth, narrates the pitiful story of a once loyal man who later became determined upon taking the bloody path towards power, including the murder of his honourable King, Duncan. The Macbeth's evil doings lead to their own demise. The play was written only a year after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Shakespeare wrote this play in order to warn other potential regicides of the awful fate that will inevitably await them if they too were foolish enough to commit such an atrocious act. The play integrates many themes from the supernatural to death and deceit, with the most significant being excessive ambition, which was without a doubt a major factor in the occurrence of regicide.

    William Shakespeare's tragic play Macbeth presents the fizzled drive of an ambitious husband and wife. This essay is the story of their destructive ambition.

Lady Macbeth’s character often separates from the unsexed character she wishes to be. When the death of Duncan is announced, Lady Macbeth faints in order to stop Macbeth from indicting himself with the murder. This attempt to help her husband is very noble, but her attempt again proves her to be feminine. Fainting is a very feminine act, and makes her look weak. In general, Lady Macbeth shows

Unlike the witches, Lady Macbeth shows signs of vulnerability, and becomes wracked with guilt. This is evident in her sleepwalking scene, when she says “Out damned spot! Out, I say!”(VI, 1, 31) She, at that point in time, was haunted by the sight of blood on her hands, and was convinced the blood was still there, showing signs of madness as she becomes mentally unhinged. Lady Macbeth’s recollection of Macbeth’s words after Duncan was murdered also haunted and festered within her as shown when she starts to echo Macbeth’s statements and fears, when she said “To bed, to bed: there’s knocking at the gate!”(VI, 1, 59) When Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking and imagines that she is in hell, as shown by her statement “Hell is murky,” (VI, 1, 32) she does not appear on stage again, and dies offstage. The two most likely scenarios for her death would be suicide, or an act involving the doctor and/or the gentlewoman, as they were the only people that witnessed the truth about the murders. If suicide was the cause of Lady Macbeth’s death, as is likely, an even deeper level of guilt is shown and this emotional trauma felt by Lady Macbeth is not felt by the witches. These signs of weakness are contrary to the connection she had with the evil spirits in her evocation