Ambition in Hamlet by Williams Shakespeare

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The dictionary defines personal ambition as “An earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honour, fame, or wealth and the willingness to strive for its attainment”. (Dictionary.com) One could argue that too much ambition can be a negative trait. By placing such an emphasis on personal ambition it causes some to push their loved ones away in order to achieve what they want. Within most people, unhappiness is a common feeling and in extreme results, it leads to death. In the texts Fifth Business by Robertson Davies and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it is evident when the strongest characters place power and ambition above all else they crumble.
There is a saying that goes, “We ignore the ones who love us, and love the ones that ignore us”. This phrase fits perfectly with the character Hamlet from Hamlet. Hamlet suffocates himself with a great deal of ambition because his veins are filled with revenge. In order for his plan to succeed he needs to go insane and thus, pushes everyone who cares about him away. Two characters, Ophelia and Gertrude receive the shortest ends of sticks when it comes to Hamlet pushing them away. In act 3.1 Hamlet and Ophelia have a very heated argument and Hamlet tells Ophelia:
Get thee to a nunnery; why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, buy yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, believe none of us; go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father? (3.1...

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...hing those you love away to strive to the top. One realizes that they are constantly unhappy when filled with their own ambition and in the most severe cases, personal ambition leads to death. It is unmistakable when the strongest characters in the texts Fifth Business by Robertson Davies and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, place power and ambition above all else they crumble. It has been said that there is a method to our madness, and the method is placing too power on ambition above all else.

Works Cited

"Ambition." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.
Davies, Robertson. Fifth Business. Toronto: Penguin, 1996. Print.
Half, Robert. "Thoughts On The Business Of Life." Thesis. N.d. Thoughts and Quotes on Death. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Shakespeare, William, and Betty Bealey. Hamlet. Mississauga, Ont.: Canadian School Book Exchange, 1996. Print.

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