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Theme Themes In Macbeth

Decent Essays

In Macbeth, Shakespeare encompasses many different themes throughout the entirety of his play. A few of these themes brought to light in his play are ambition, guilt, how things are not always what they seem, and nature versus the unnatural. Now, while these have different meanings for each theme, they all come together to create a well-rounded play. What are the meanings of these themes? How can we see how Shakespeare depicts these? Well, throughout his play, many quotes can be seen as examples of the many themes.
To begin with, Shakespeare uses the theme ambition in which he shows how having too much ambition leads to destruction of others as well as the one with the ambition. This can be seen when Macbeth is talking about his prophecy given by the three witches that states he will not only become Thane of Cawdor but also will reign as the King of Scotland. Macbeth states "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself and fall on th' other (Act 1 scene 7 lines 25-28)". When Macbeth says this, he shows that nothing can stop his ambition from getting what he wants, which is the throne. He is saying that by having ambition, people do not let things happen on their own, but speed up the process by taking it into their own hands.
In the theme of guilt, Shakespeare shows not only how it is consuming and can lead to the destruction of ones' self, but also how it can cause one to do good. This is seen when Macduff and the

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