Pursuing Happiness

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the title character Macbeth and his wife are both exceptionally ambitious, often taking rather radical measures to accomplish their goals. While this ruthless drive to power is seemingly prosperous at first, it quickly crumbles to naught as guilt infects their minds with grim consequences to follow. Macbeth transforms from a noble general to a guilt-ridden and despaired murderer, while Lady Macbeth’s usually stoic and masculine persona deteriorates into a pitiful and anxious shell of her former self. The feeling of remorse quickly plagues the two characters and overpowers ambition through manifesting itself through nightmares, ghosts, and paranoia, and ultimately leads to their demise.

With attention to the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth struggles with the morality of his actions. Before the murder takes place, Macbeth begins to believe that the murder will “be the be-all and the end-all” to his clear conscious and would risk him to eternal damnation (Act I, line 5). Yet, the murder would bring him power over Scotland and he “shalt be kind” as told by the Weird Sisters(Act 1, line 50). Macbeth goes off of his ambition to murder King Duncan. The internal struggle of choosing mortality over motives brought forth an intense shift of loyalty to betrayal. The murder caused for Macbeth to turn on Scotland and only care for his own selfish motives. The betrayal causes for the play to become horrific and have a double meaning. Macbeth must put on a face to hide his murder to become the king. The double meaning is how Macbeth looks like a hero to all of Scotland, but only the people on the inside know of his horrific actions. He had to murder to to get the position of King, but the

In the original innocence of Macbeth the thought of murdering a family would be unthinkable, but the truly evil person he becomes commits the act with happiness know that there will be less to threaten his reign as king.

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play.

“...it's true that some of the most terrible things in the works are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best” (Terry Pratchett). In Shakespeare’s play, The Scottish Play, Macbeth is driven by selfish desires to take his fate into his own hands and go to extremes to obtain the title of King of Scotland. At the start of his pursuit for power his actions are planned and his first murder has real meaning behind it. Next, Macbeth targets the man who will father future kings. Finally, Macbeth becomes so paranoid and overcome with guilt that he has innocent women and children murdered. What starts as selfish ambition can quickly grow into an all consuming force, causing one to abandon one's honor, lose friends

“Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own” (Honoré de Balzac 98). Honré de Balzac is a French author and playwright, his quote is from one of his well known novel, Pere Goriot, in which a wealthy merchant sacrifices everything for his daughters. In William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth and Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild, the main characters have not realized that there is more happiness in another’s happiness than their own and are very self oriented. In Shakespeare’s work, the protagonist Macbeth is bent on gaining power, so he kills King Duncan in hopes of becoming the new monarch, which results in many destroyed relationships. While Macbeth is king, guilt and paranoia eat at him, resulting in Macbeth murdering even more people. Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, features Chris McCandless, an unhappy college student, who leaves his home and family to hitchhike across the United States and ultimately ends up dead. On his epic adventure McCandless survives on only the necessities, creates and breaks many friendships and even though he doesn’t murder friends like Macbeth, he still deeply hurts them. Shakespeare and Krakauer’s characters exhibit the sacrifice needed to accomplish their goals through giving up one’s health for a greater cause and breaking relationships for one’s own gain.

Macbeth, a character that is ruthless with power takes action to get that happiness fulfilled. Even if it harms individuals. The tyrant receives three prophecies that will ensure happiness. “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.” (Act I, scene iii, 50-53). With the three prophecies in mind Macbeth is persuaded to do such deeds that are no less than inhumane. Macbeth knows that these prophecies grant one step further towards happiness, as well one step further towards compromise. “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:” (Act 1, scene iv, 55-58) From this quotes, it learnt that Macbeth is willing to go to some extent to sabotage anyone to get the throne, ensuring the prophecy. With the death of the King, and the knowledge that Macbeth committed the crime there is a step further taken toward happiness among Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. This is the

Ambition is an admirable trait that enabled famous writers and scholars to attain an unbelievable greatness. However, highly ambitious people often end up failing because they are unable to fill up an insatiable hole of greed that leads them to constant frustration and dissatisfaction. Just as an excessive ambition can start with malice, it can end in anguish and despair. In the play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, the main protagonist, Macbeth, and his wife, Lady Macbeth, demonstrate an ambition that has an exacerbating impact on them that slowly leads to the self-destruction and obliteration of people around. After Lady Macbeth clouded Macbeth’s mind, Macbeth killed a benevolent king Duncan. But even with crown and power, Macbeth spend his life in fear and anxiety, until the weight of the ambition was relieved by his downfall. Through Macbeth’s character, Shakespeare shows that the extreme ambition that was emerged out of ferocious passion could devour an individual’s moral goodness, which in turn would carve the path directly to the total misery. Possessing such ambition makes the individual live in a self-imposed fretfulness and expose the closest people under consequential threats.

People have control over what they do in life, but not everyone thinks before they do. Some of the actions that people do commit may result in positive or negative outcomes. In Shakespeare Macbeth, Macbeth the main character suffers many consequences because of the bad decisions that he has made in order to get himself in power and to keep his power from those who may want to take it away from him, this may lead to consequences that the character faces in the future. Macbeth is expected to be a loyal and courageous soldier that the audience may not think to be a murdures, unloyal and disobedient person. Throughout Macbeth, Macbeth is successful of becoming king because of the influence of Lady Macbeth of telling Macbeth to kill him. Although Macbeth does obtain all this power Shakespeare does not allow him to live the good life for long, instead he makes him suffer through the witches that tell him the prophecies about how powerful he will become. That makes him very confident and that is where all his actions are that lead to consequences that he suffers throughout the book. At the end of the play Macbeth is not rewarded for the actions that he has committed to become king but shows how Macbeth’s actions lead to his death at the end.

Ambition has been a driving force of humanity since the beginning of time. Emotions have always had a strong influence on humanity, specifically emotions that tend towards the ruin of others and the gain another. Throughout the history of humanity there have been many examples of people abusing their position of power, to gain something they more than likely did not deserve. Whether it be Hitler and his repulsive ascension to becoming chancellor of Germany, or Kim Jong Un’s obsession with obtaining nuclear weapons at the cost of the people, humanities struggle with greed is unceasing. No one better illustrates this unrelenting thirst for power more than Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is a good, brave, and beloved man at the beginning of the play with the end of his latest battle heralding a new title for him. Fate though, seems to have different plans for the good, albeit, ambitious Macbeth. He is told by the 3 weird sisters that he will one day become king. Thus igniting the flame of greed within Macbeth, signaling his descent into madness and the guilt he feels towards the deeds he has done. Lady Macbeth is much the same in the sense that once she knew of Macbeths own ambition, it hatched her own deep seeded desire for the crown as well. However, there various similarities end with the death of Duncan and the way they both deal with the guilt over what they did. In the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have similarly great ambition, but this intense avarice in the end leads to their ruin in differing ways.

Macbeth's mental condition continues to deteriorate as his pursuit of power continues to drive him to commit more crimes. After his first killing Duncan to last killing Malcolm's family, the greed only caused him to commit more and more crimes. He would have never totally satisfied, he would always want more, but that is do to his greed that had corrupted his mind and heart.

Humans in general experience the dread of guilt pressing on their conscience and, no matter how hard one can internalize this guilt, the psychological torment can drive a person to insanity without any hope of return. Macbeth, Shakespeare’s play provides a story of Macbeth’s slow regression from being a noble soldier to a deranged murderer who is swimming in power and slowly drowns in his power. Macbeth’s fear of his secret being revealed begins to take over his actions, leading him to have to do acts that even he disagrees with in retrospect. His heinous acts then begin to overwhelm him and affect his everyday life, leading to his inevitable downfall. Shakespeare makes the theme of the play apparent through Macbeth’s decisions and emotions

The play of Macbeth is about a man called Macbeth who got a prophecy that he was going to be king. Once his first prophecy, being a cawdor, came true he did everything in his power to make sure he would be king. He strongly believed that taking the throne would his life better or happier. He had already had land because he was already a cawdor, the king even went as far as to give Macbeth more land for his services. All that land meant nothing to Macbeth because he wanted it all. His decision to complete the prophecy led him to be consumed by greed. He was convincing himself that he was doing this for the happiness of him and his wife. These thoughts led Macbeth to murdering the king, his cousin, Duncan. Macbeth’s best friend Banquo knew of his prophecy and soonly discovered that Macbeth killed the king. Paranoid about being discovered Macbeth ordered the murder of Banquo. Macbeth thought that now he could rein the kingdom of Scotland without anyone to accuse him of murder and for a while no one did. They should be happy now right? On the contrary Macbeth and his wife began going insane. In the end, Macbeth was killed and his wife died of insanity. Macbeth believed that having everything that his cousin had would make him happier than he was earlier on in the story but instead he was constantly consumed with guilt of his actions and died a horrible death. The story of Macbeth proves that having everything doesn’t make people happy. Having money and fame like celebrities isn’t going to make you happy. If Macbeth was just content with what he had he might’ve been king eventually without the

Macbeth by William Shakespeare is the story of how one mans hubris destroys him. From it, we can extrapolate and comment on how in society people have a choice. We can live a life of altruism, valour and nobility or one fuelled by ambition, greed and violence. Macbeths journey from the former to the later showcases to the audience the dangers of selfishness. It prompts us to question our view of life – do we succumb to the false promises of evil, as tempting as they are, or do we remain defiant and true to ourselves. Shakespeare’s play is a very clear warning against listening to the dark forces that are constantly around us.

There are many theories surrounding happiness, and the pursuit of happiness. Some believe that an external force must be present to bring about happiness, while others argue that happiness is individualized, and is completely up to a person's internal mindset of whether he or she is able to achieve and maintain happiness. Aristotle, a significant ancient Greek philosopher, believes that happiness requires an action. He affirms that there are many factors that play into someone's happiness; including materialistic things, which help support this state of being. His claim is that happiness is a holistic approach to life and must be achieved by living virtuously with moral character. Aristotle also indicates that happiness is not a moment in time, but rather a journey of exploration by way of living harmoniously, through a pursuit of achieving life’s goals and desires. He adds that a life of happiness is driven by virtue and emotions, which all play a role in achieving optimum happiness.