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Ambition examples, essays
Ambition examples, essays
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The desire for success or fame engulfs individuals’ lives and drive their every need. In William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, ambition controls the lives of the characters. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s ambition cloud their judgment and lead to their downfall. Both characters use a negative ambition to make decisions and commit actions.
Macbeth’s hunger for power triggers his tragic flaw, ambition. He is on a high from murdering Macdonwald. The king praises him, “o valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!” (Shakespeare I, ii) and this gets to his head. He is named Thane of Cawdor but Macbeth wants more, and he is willing to execute atrocious actions to obtain it. “He shows at the beginning of the play that he knows right from wrong, and chooses to do wrong without being able to justify it to himself” (No Fear Shakespeare). His ambition causes him to commit actions he never would have such as killing people that are close to him.
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Macbeth “… [is] driven to crime by the promptings of his wife” (Bloom) since she is just as greedy and deceiving as her husband. All Lady Macbeth has to do is convince her husband that killing the king will be beneficial. Macbeth decides that “with [King Duncan’s] surcease, success” (Shakespeare I, vii). The two of them do not care if King Duncan is dead, they only have their eyes set on taking over his position and power. They feed off of each other's greed, making excuses as to why they should go through with the horrible actions they think of. Her greed and desire sparked his and makes him want to perpetrate sins he did not want to
In the play of “Macbeth”, Shakespeare gradually and effectively deepens our understanding of the themes and most importantly the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The main theme of Macbeth is ambition, and how it compels the main characters to pursue it. The antagonists of the play are the three witches, who symbolise the theme appearance and reality. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relation is an irony throughout the play, as most of their relation is based on greed and power. This is different from most of Shakespeare’s other plays, which are mostly based on romance and trust. There is also guilt that leads Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to the final consequences of the play. As the progresses, the constant changes in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are exposed.
There are myriad fine lines in life, seemingly unattainable happy mediums that we endeavour to find, and spectrums that we attempt to exist in between. As sentient beings, we are continually evolving, and yet we are always searching for something that will remain constant in our often haphazard lives: Balance. Without it, one may see structure within their life deteriorate, as an overwhelming sense of chaos begins to percolate day to day existence. When we fail to achieve balance, adverse effects soon transpire. In William Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, the type of balance being discussed is that of ambition and pride. The author suggests that ambition and pride are both respectable qualities to possess, and can coexist within a person
Where is there a page in William Shakespeare's tragic play Macbeth which does not present the selfish virtue of personal ambition. This paper addresses the problem of ambition in the drama.
Ambition and desire are double-edged notions present in all who crave success and power. While ambition is most often associated with unfavorable greed and overwhelming need, people who express this desire are simultaneously praised for being goal-oriented and steadfast in achieving their goals. In the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, this duality of ambition is explored through the character of Lady Macbeth. In the play, Lady Macbeth’s husband, Macbeth, is prophesied to be king, and in order to expedite his path to the throne and their combined rise to power, Lady Macbeth plots to murder the current King Duncan. Throughout her Act I soliloquy, Lady Macbeth reveals not only her malevolent and scheming nature, but also profound determination
The vigorous desire to achieve and willingly attain something holds the capability to greatly affect one's life. William Shakespeare's play Macbeth establishes the immense effect and influence of ambition. After gaining power over his country Scotland, the protagonist, Macbeth, experiences an internal downfall as he battles between his wants and moral judgement. He struggles to maintain stable relationships with others as his selfish desires and goals hurt those around him when achieved. In addition to clashing with himself and others, he is seen as a tyrant leader and is slowly turned against by Scotland's nation as well as England. Shakespeare's play Macbeth provides the reader with a clear understanding of ambition's corrupting power in Shakespeare's tragic character Macbeth, through his inner conflicts, struggle to maintain stable relationships with those surrounding him, and clash with society.
Just like any of us, Macbeth’s ambition caused him to be easily influenced. Based on the text, the witches say to Macbeth and Banquo, “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!” “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee Thane of Cawdor!” “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, that shalt be king hereafter!” After the witches speak his prophecy, Macbeth with great interest and desire then asks to here more about what the witches have to say. Soon after Macbeth was given the name Thane of Cawdor, he believed what the witches said had some truth to it causing his ambition to be influenced by the wicked weird sisters. When Macbeth tells his wife, Lady Macbeth about the prophecy, Macbeth’s ambition then faces Lady Macbeth’s influence. According to the
Among the greatest gifts that the renaissance produced was the eloquent and incredible Shakespearean plays. Written mostly in the 1590s these plays have been performed and admired countless times; entertaining mass audiences by providing interesting tales that explore the depth of human insights and the different universal themes. Among the many Shakespearean plays Macbeth, written in 1606, stands out with its short composition but multiple themes. This tragedy narrates the tale of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s quest to grasp ultimate power by ignoring their morals and succumbing to their dark desires, which ultimately leads to their downfall. This tragic play portrays the desires, needs, and temptations that accompany ambition in men and women. However the ambition in Macbeth is blind, it does not abide to the morals, but it allows space for dark actions as means necessary for accomplishment. Blind ambition serves as the main driving force that drives Macbeth to subdue to his dark desires, defy his noble behavior, and ultimately his downfall.
Lady Macbeth and the witches have both planted the seed of ambition inside of Macbeth Because of Lady Macbeth’s wicked behavior, which resulted in Macbeth’s evil transition; he was led to become a murderer. Macbeth should not be held accountable for his actions completely since she is the one who lead him towards committing both crimes. The major theme ambition and greed for power have played a key part in Macbeth’s fall from a great Scottish general to a murderer. People should be content on what they have and not strive for things which destroy a person even if we are influenced. In this case Shakespeare’s thought proving play of Macbeth.
Macbeth shows how greed and ambition can bring down a person as well as others and how the changes of power occur because of loyalty and betrayal. Macbeth is the play’s main unhappy character. The play tells of Macbeth's greedy thirst for power is a dangerous trait.
In Macbeth, the first person to turn to greed to gain power is Lady Macbeth. After Macbeth’s first meeting with the Weird Sisters, Macbeth receives the title of the Thane of Cawdor, which then plants a seed in Lady Macbeth’s head. She instantly begins to plot Duncan’s murder, but in order to follow through with this plan, she has to let go of her “mortal thoughts” (Shakespeare, I, v, 40) and be filled with the “direst cruelty” (Shakespeare, I, v, 42). By wishing to be “unsexed”, Lady Macbeth has accepted the fact that in order to kill Duncan, she has to let go of everything that makes her a woman, such as tenderness and love and as a replacement, she wants to be full of malice. Another character, Macbeth, is a very loyal subject Duncan at first, but following Duncan’s murder, Macbeth’s personality changes. Lady Macbeth suspects that Macbeth “is too full o’ the milk of human kindness” (Shakespeare, I, v, 16). Yet, Macbeth’s desire for power finally takes over his kind conscience; this greed for power appears as a bloody knife pointing to Duncan’s bed. When Macbeth s...
Macbeth feels the pressure of his own dark desires early on in the play during his first visit with the witches, this experience marks the beginning his journey into the abyss of determining his own destiny and it demonstrates how easily some individuals can be influenced when tempted with glory. As this journey continues, Macbeth finds himself trapped in a cycle of impulsive murder and covering his own tracks, he feels obligated to take action in order to maintain his rise to the top and perfectly illustrates how this mentality can quickly turn into a tragic downfall of a powerful and potentially successful individual at the hands of those they impacts with their actions. Many valuable lessons can be taken from this masterpiece by William Shakespeare, one of which being the importance of not compromising the relationships individuals have with their peers for personal gain. While it is important for individuals to take control of their own lives, their determination should never reach the point of damaging the well being of others if they are also interested in living a healthy, happy, and successful
Heraclitus once said,“big results require big ambitions.” The idea that being unrealistically ambitious can have tragic consequences shines brightly throughout the short tragedy Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare. To help develop this idea to his audience, Shakespeare uses the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, whose ambition is so strong that it ends up leading to their downfall. Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act One about murdering his cousin King Duncan and Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy about wanting to lose her femininity. These acts lead them losing their minds, emotions and respect from and for others and changes them in a way that they become unrecognisable and the furthest things from themselves.
Do people tend to have ambitions that succumb to the thoughts put in their head by the ideas they are surrounded by? In Macbeth written by William Shakespeare one can see a strong warrior named Macbeth become a tyrant through his acts of ambition caused by the people that he is surrounded by and his beliefs in weird sisters. Because of Macbeth’s desire, an individual can see change of ambition through positive and negative acts of himself and people around him. In the beginning of the play of Macbeth believes that there is something in favour of him in his life--a sense of pronoia.
An important idea in William Shakespeare’s tragedy, ‘Macbeth’ is that even the most nobelest of men can be corrupted by ambition. This idea is worth learning about because it shows how ambition can make a person do terrible things and because it shows how ambition can drive a person crazy. An important idea presented by Shakespeare is how ambition can corrupt even good people. At the beginning of the play Macbeth was recognised by everyone as a noble hero.
In Macbeth, Shakespeare confronts audiences with universal and powerful themes of ambition and evil along with its consequences. Shakespeare explores the powerful theme of the human mind’s decent into madness, audiences find this theme most confronting because of its universal relevance. His use of dramatic devices includes soliloquies, animal imagery, clear characterisation and dramatic language. Themes of ambition and mental instability are evident in Lady Macbeth’s reaction to Macbeth’s letter detailing the prophecies, Macbeth’s hallucinations of Banquo’s ghost and finally in the scene where Lady Macbeth is found sleep walking, tortured by her involvement.