When we think of ambitious characters, we often remember the iconic Disney villains, like Scar or Maleficent. They are classic villains who follow their ambition to achieve their goal. However, the archetype for the ambitious character started from the original and vastly interesting Macbeth, from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth’s ambition spurs him to take action, so he murders the current king, Duncan. After he gets the position of king, he struggles to rule and take definitive action, and instead becomes overwhelmed by his lust for power. While many scholars cite Macbeth’s ambition as his tragic flaw and the primary cause of his downfall, there are many other factors that lead to his death, such as his inability to lead and his paranoia. …show more content…
After Macbeth hears the prophecy and is convinced to murder Duncan, his ambition makes him do a series of rash and impulsive decisions, which starts his downfall. Macbeth has his last moment of doubt on the night of the murder, but still follows through with the plan: “Thou sure and firm-set earth,/Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear/Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,/And take the present horror from the time,/Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives./Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives” (2.1.64-69). Macbeth still feels guilty about killing Duncan, praying that this murder will not catch up to him. This soliloquy shows Macbeth’s last shred of morality leaving him. However, Macbeth does not call the whole plan off, because he is still ambitious enough to want to be king. Once he follows with the plan and murders Duncan, he could never go back: “But, in the step he took in murdering his kinsman and guest, he seemed to have put between himself and the possibility of better things a chasm which could not be crossed. From that day he began to drift away from all that was good. The evil of his heart became unreined, and it hurried him madly on in the dark pathway which now opened before him” (Munro 32). As a result of murdering the king, Macbeth commits treason, a crime big enough for punishment. It would be hard for Macbeth to go back to being a good ruler, as he got his position by treason and murder. As a result of killing the king, Macbeth’s ambition leads him away from the path of redemption, and he loses his morality and
Throughout the play, Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, Macbeth continuously decides bad choices and the consequences of these decisions catch up to Macbeth and result in his mental deterioration, however with Macbeth’s almost infant feel for ambition this makes him susceptible to manipulation, which then grows into an insatiable appetite for power. The acts of this with the manipulation from outsiders, causes his blind ambition, his false sense of security and then finally his guilt, which all contribute to his derangement.
In the play Macbeth written by William Shakespeare, there is a deep relation to ambition. Macbeth's ambition started after the witches told him that he was going to be king after Duncan died, so then Macbeth and Lady Macbeth just decided to kill Duncan. After this first murder he then decided that he would do anything to keep his crown, since he was so hungry for power. Guilt soon got the best of him which then led to his demise.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play. Macbeth’s rise to the throne was brought about by the same external forces that ensure his downfall.
This ambition was planted and nursed in his mind when he was told the prophecy from three witches that he will one day be king. Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth, was the spark that ignited the drive in Macbeth to begin his evil ways and kill King Duncan for his power. “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other”(Shakespeare, 337). Although Macbeth originally knows that what he is doing is wrong, Lady Macbeth continues to push him in the dark void that his ambition has created and his feelings of remorse or wrongdoing will soon enough fade away. Although ambition has plagued Lady Macbeth as well and “has laid its stealthy fingers upon her conscience” (Gerwig, Vol.69). Lady Macbeth is the main reason that Macbeth so easily went to the dark side and she has become blinded by her own desires and that for her husband that she no longer cares for what is right and wrong. Macbeths killing will not stop with just king Duncan though and “by releasing his ambition, Macbeth is successful in destroying his conscience…” (McGrail, 19-46). Everyone is now a threat to his newfound power as king and Macbeth will kill whatever innocents he sees as necessary. Morals do not exist for him now, the only thing that matters is power and sustaining it and this ultimately is what leads him to being killed. Eventually
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Without my stir?” Macbeth ponders after three witches foresee that he will become king in the tragic play Macbeth written by William Shakespeare (349). Macbeth is wondering how he could become king of Scotland without him intervening as he is not in line for the throne. He believes that he will have to take action to gain this position. Macbeth was right to doubt fate, because his choices led to his ascension to the throne and, later in the play, to his downfall.
Throughout the play Macbeth allows his pride to interfere with his judgment and succumbs to the witches’ prophecy, leading to his tragic downfall. “Macbeth orders a slaughter of innocents in a vain and futile attempt to preserve kingships threatened by prophecies” (Hassel). He murders King Duncan, his good friend, in order to secure his fate as king. Although Macbeth knows the difference between right and wrong, he is a victim of his tragic flaw: his ambition. His tragic flaw repeatedly leads him to deceit and murder.
Before the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth was a brave, noble warrior. “For brave Macbeth well he deserves that name… Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chop and fixed his head upon our battlements” (Act I, Scene 2, lines 2). He was one of the last people anyone would expect to kill King Duncan. Shakespeare chooses a noble character such as Macbeth, to emphasize how greed and power can alter a person’s good morals. In Act one we start to see Macbeth’s desire for more power rise. “Stars, hide your fires; Let no light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hond yet let that be which the eye fears, when it is done to see” (Act I, Scene 4, lines 52- 55). His desire for power is at war with his good morals. He wants to become king but does not want to kill Duncan.
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.
From this point forward, Macbeth believes that since he is already damned, his actions are irreversible and unforgivable by any force of nature or being. Macbeth then comes to realize that there is no reason in acting upon his moral sense and stops concerning himself with the consequences of the situation and does what he pleases in order to maintain his reign from anyone else interfering. After achieving the throne, Macbeth’s new goal is protecting it from everyone else, in which his ambition causes the discontinue of his concern for other people, regardless general moral
To begin, Macbeth experiences an internal downfall due to his ambition where he battle between his desires and moralistic values. Initially, the idea of attaining power over Scotland by killing King Duncan sparks a sense of fear and paranoia in Macbeth, however, his conscience struggles to take over his ambition: "that we but teach/ Bloody instructions, which being taught, return/ To plague the inventor. [...] I have no spur/ To prick the sides of my intent, but only/ Valuing ambition, which o'erleaps itself/ And falls on th' other-" (1.7.8-28). At this moment, Macbeth contemplates on killing King Duncan as he visualizes the long term consequences of committing the crime. The reader can grasp his moral judgement as he understands that by proceeding with the murder, he is only causing his own demise and punishing himself. With that b...
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
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, first published in 1606, is an endearing tale outlining the dangers of unchecked ambition and moral betrayal. In the subsequent centuries after first being performed, Macbeths critics have been divided upon whether Macbeth himself was irrevocably evil, or if he was guided by the manipulation and actions of the women in the play to his ultimate demise. Although Lady Macbeth and the witches were influential with their provocations in the opening acts, it is ultimately Macbeth’s inherent immorality and his vaulting ambition, that result in the tragic downfall. It was Macbeth’s desire for power that abolished his loyalty and trustworthiness and led him down a path of murder. It is evident through his actions and words
Throughout Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the theme of blind ambition leading to the uncontrollable actions of violence occurs continuously. The major conflict in which the play reflects on is that when one uses violence to fulfill his ambitions for power, there is no turning back, and the violence cannot be stopped in any way. Therefore, the halt of violence acquired from the death of Macbeth restores Thebes in a positive way and it is the best solution for both Macbeth and for those around him. This project demonstrates the good versus evil reflected through the blind ambition and violence in Shakespeare’s Macbeth by music including both classical and modern melodies.
In Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, Shakespeare creates the ruthless character Macbeth, who is willing to go beyond any measure in order to attain the power of being king, including murder, deceit, betrayal and overpowering the chain of being. Macbeth was first tempted by the idea of kingship when three witches presented him with their portent of Macbeth becoming the next King of Scotland. Ebullient, Macbeth, immediately informed his wife of the news and they both pondered the thought of having the power to rule all of Scotland. Lady Macbeth, a power seeker herself, promptly schemed a plan to kill King Duncan in order for her and her husband to rule, displaying her ready ambition for power. Macbeth’s thirst for power ate away at his conscience
Macbeth is a brave man who is not naturally inclined to perform evil deeds, yet he desperately wants and desires power and succession. At the end, he is not happy with what he has accomplished, "I am afraid to think what I have done; look on `t again I dare not" (Shakespeare Macbeth 2.2.51-52). He kills Duncan against his own logical judgement and later drowns in paranoia and guilt. Macbeth is led to wicked thoughts by the prophecies of the three witches, especially after the witches' prophecy that he will be made Thane of Cawdor comes true. Macbeth is a powerful man and...