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Theme Of Ambition In Macbeth

Decent Essays

Tragic Ambition

As we all know Shakespeare is a very emotional writer. For example; Romeo and Juliet is a love story ending in death, Hamlet, in order to get the crown everybody died, and then we have Macbeth, a man with great ambition, challenged everyone to get the crown, just to end up alone and decapitated. Macbeth is a really dark story of how one man’s ambition got him everything, but was not able to really enjoy it. In Macbeth there are symbols that contribute the main theme of ambition. These symbols are; the three witches, blood and hands, sleep, light,darkness, and women. All these symbol contribute to set the overall theme of a tragic ambition. The three witches, or the three weird sisters, are people who came to manipulate Macbeth into conquering his desires. In the first act, scene one was all about them meeting with Macbeth and letting him know about some glorious news. Later on in the act, the three witches encountered him and said ‘First Witch. “All hail, Macbeth!, hail to thee, thane of Glamis.” Second Witch. “All hail, Macbeth!, hail to thee of cawdor!” Third Witch. “All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter.” pg five to six act one scene three Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Dover Publications, 1993. The witches gave him a prophacy of being next in line to be king, so this obviously sparked ideas in his head. He became obssed with this prophacey and did not stop at anything to make them true, he cause chaos in people’s lives just to maintain a high stature. “Illustrating the positive creativity power at work, even inadventurally through the witches, power that Macbeth can niether control or destroy. His own art- wholly evil and negative one.” Lynch, Kathryn L. “'What Hands Are Here?' The Hand as Generative Symbol in Macbeth.” Vol. 39, no. 153, 1988, pp. 29–38., www.jstor.org/stable/515476. Accessed 30 Nov. 2017. Basically, the witches gave him so much power from a brief conversation the he did not know what to do, but use it for wrong. His ambition lead him to kill people. Blood and hands are the guilt of the ambition. Macbeth and his wife planned to kill their king, so they could be the royal family. Macbeth was not totally happy with the plan, but he wanted more then what he

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