Macbeth's Ambition

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

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.

After hearing the prophecy that he will become king, Macbeth resolves to leave his future up to fate proving his pride and prestige are very important to him. Once he is told of Malcolm being named successor to the throne, Macbeth decides that if he is going to reach his goal he cannot leave it up to luck. Again Macbeth’s resolve to murder Duncan wavers when he leaves the grand banquet to assess his situation and decide whether he wants to proceed. His arguments include wishing to keep his honor and not kill Duncan for Duncan is there ‘in double trust’. Thus, Macbeth is shown to be clinging to his honor. Finally, Macbeth must stand his ground one last time against his wife who uses tact to emasculate Macbeth. In his final attempt to stop the whole ordeal before it can start Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth that he does not want to ‘cast aside’ the honor he has just recently received. Unfortunately, Lady Macbeth will have none of what her husband is saying and so convinces Macbeth to follow through with his plan of murdering King Duncan. Hence, the audience is given the first example of how powerful selfish motives are and how quickly they can spread to others along with cause them to perform unthinkable

Coincidentally, Duncan, honoring the hero, decides to stay at Macbeth’s castle overnight. Lady Macbeth believes that this is a perfect opportunity given by fate to kill Duncan and usurp his power. Exhibiting extreme ambition and masculinity, Lady Macbeth orchestrates the entire scheme and persuades her husband into committing evil deeds, chiding him for behaving like a feminine and coward. Macbeth eventually yields to his wife’s pressure and manipulation. After the murder is discovered, Malcolm and Donalbain, Duncan’s sons, flee to England and Ireland, respectively, while Macbeth assumes a dictatorial sovereignty of Scotland. Macbeth, however, becomes insecure about his power, for the witches have prophesied that Banquo’s descendants will be kings and Macduff, another Scottish nobleman in England, may threaten him. Hence, the vicious tyrant assassinates Banquo and Macduff’s family. As a result, Macduff, with aids from Malcolm and England, vows to retaliate against Macbeth. Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth is greatly agonized by guilt, sleepwalking, rubbing her hands as if trying to wash away the bloodstains, and finally committing suicide. The downfall of Macbeth immediately succeeds when the English army invades his castle and is marked by Macduff outplaying Macbeth in a fierce

As people become aware of his tyrannical actions, they begin to revolt against Macbeth. As he sees this as an opportunity to display his power and indestructability, Macbeth quickly defies his opponents, becoming heartless to the deaths of others and caring only about the maintenance of his title. Even as his wife dies, Macbeth brushes the news as an inconvenience and focuses on how to defeat his opponents. With the collection of titles and power, Macbeth believes himself to have power over everyone, and in turn, this causes him to become disconnected from both his people and those who serve to advise and protect him. As his military abandons him and some weakly fight against opposing forces, Macbeth is eventually killed by an opponent he had initially dismissed.

Macbeth is now too ambitious to consider going back to being a good person. He is now uncaring as to the consequences of any evil deeds he does next, corrupting his honorable morals from earlier in the play. In addition, this leads to more violence and the grief of his subjects. In particular, when Macduff and Malcolm are discussing the state of Scotland under Macbeth’s rule, Macduff says, “Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men / Bestride our down-fall’n birthdom: each new morn / New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows” (IV.

Ambition is defined as, having strong want or desire for more than you have. In the story “Macbeth”, ambition contributes to the devolvement of the characters. The three witches are the source of such ambition in this story. It’s almost as if they control the negative or even dark, selfish ambition of the characters Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo.

Despite how many improvements, changes or accomplishes we have done today for humankind. Yet there are some facts about ourselves that cannot be changed. It is our own selfishness, the fact that we always want something we have interests in often causes us to lost what creates us as human beings, having no sentimentals or sympathies toward others. Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth shows the development of a person, who can be put in “absolute trust” (I iv 15) turns into a narcissistic tyrant who wants nothing good but for himself. Macbeth, starts out as a beneficent character whose self soon become corrupted by his own desires thus lead to the corruption of Scotland.

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).

The Corruptive Power of Ambition Throughout history, ambition has been a driving force, both for individuals and society. Ambition is an eager and sometimes an exorbitant desire for elevation, honour, power, supremacy or simply the achievement of anything. Ambition is basically an instinct. No matter what background or age you are, you are ambitious in some way. This eagerness is not only a driving force for both individuals and society, but could also end in a fiasco.

In Macbeth Act 1, Macbeth complies with Lady Macbeth’s demands despite his awareness of the consequences that can occur. Reasons for him giving in to Lady Macbeth’s demands is because he doesn’t want to seem like a coward in her eyes and act like a courageous man. In lines 1-28, Macbeth expresses his doubt about continuing the plan of killing Duncan, “...we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to the plague of the inventor...as his host… not bear the knife myself... his virtues will plead like angels… I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition…”

The Blind Ambition of Macbeth Pride can so easily turn into an evil ambition when given the power to do so. Power is generally unequal in both its distribution and meaning. Macbeth generates several judgement errors that ultimately lead to his own destruction, and is a classic example of a tragic hero in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. There are a multitude of traits to describe this, whether it is misinterpreting ambiguous predictions in order to find a message he wishes to hear, or the fact that he clearly brings this suffering upon himself.

Macbeth, who is the protagonist in the story, was an ambitious, evil person, but was also conflicted because of his choices. Macbeth at the beginning of the story was ambitious, mainly due to the prophecies the witches told Macbeth. Which were, being the Thane of Cawdor and being King of Scotland. This made Macbeth strive to become King, he would do anything to have the title; even if it means killing people. Macbeth attempts to get more prophecies out of the witches, so he create more plans to become King.

“Where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles; The near in blood. The nearer bloody,” Donalbain declares in Act 2, Scene 3 of the famous play, Macbeth. William Shakespeare, which is the author of Macbeth and numerous other famous writings, wrote the play Macbeth around the year 1606, and since then it has been a story acted out and told to many generations. This piece of literature is still relevant to this day, even though the main character, Macbeth, is in an altered situation dealing with fatality, blood, and witches. Because Macbeth cheats fate and does many wrongdoings, he gets killed in the end.

“When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightening or in rain?”. In this commentary I will be exploring one of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, Macbeth. In particular, Act 5 Scene 1, lines 21-61. The play Macbeth, was first published in 1606, but is set in the early 11th century of Scotland. The play was written for king James, after the gun powder plot, where there was an attempted assassination by the blowing up of the parliament.