Ethical Issues In Macbeth

How do the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth highlight the issues of ambition and ethical behaviour?

Macbeth by William Shakespeare contains breathtaking issues such as curiousness of ambition as well as the somewhat cruel ethical behaviour. Lady Macbeth’s ambition for becoming more powerful than Macbeth or even other men is one of the great examples of the ambition characters have in the novel Macbeth. Another example of ambition and ethical behaviour is when Lady Macbeth completely convinces Macbeth to stab and kill King Duncan all in one night. And a final great example of ethical behaviour and ambition is when Macbeth finds out Macduff is coming after him and his wife Lady Macbeth dies just days before Macduff begins his attempt to

Macbeth is distrustful of what Lady Macbeth is planning but Macbeth would always be heavily influenced by the ideas presented to him. The following quote is a great example of Lady Macbeth being the stronger person, “How now, my lord! Why do you keep alone, of sorriest fancies your companions making, using those thoughts which should indeed have died With them they think on? Things without all remedy, should be without regard. What's done is done. “[Act 3 Scene 2 lines 8-12] Lady Macbeth can be seen as more dominant from this quote because she is already over the death of King Duncan and is ready to move on whereas Macbeth is left feeling paranoid and overly emotional over what has happened. Lady Macbeth can be viewed as taking advantage of Macbeth for being emotionally weaker than herself she overpowers and peer pressures him into many decisions such as the killing of King Duncan these decisions may have never been thought of had Lady Macbeth not been

tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing." [Act 5 Scene 5 lines 17-27] This quote shows the brief partially meaningful thinking time Macbeth had after his wife’s premature death, however even in this quote he showed no remorse as he could have had the same speech for someone that he did not love. Macbeth went on to battle Macduff in what would become his final battle, Macbeth was beaten easily in this battle because he was extremely weak mentally he had never made his own decisions, his decisions were always forced by Lady Macbeth this causing him to have no belief in what he was doing because he had never really done what he wanted to do because Lady Macbeth was such a dominant person in his