Blood Display the Harm of Ambition in The Tragedy of Macbeth Many people seek power, even if it will bring undesirous actions. In some cases, individuals bring their own destruction when they want more than they need. People’s greed can lose their sanity and allow them to do scandalous actions they would have never done. As a courageous warrior greedy for power, Macbeth allows his ambition take over and assassins his friends and family. Ambition harms more than it can benefit when powers with greed. In the Elizabethan play, The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare shows through the usage of blood that greedy ambition creates a guilty conscience to the mind and vengeance from the past. Macbeth’s greed and ambition for the throne inspires him to kill Duncan, thus creating a guilty conscience. “Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feel as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” (II. i. 48-51). Macbeth’s guilty conscience appears when he sees a bloody dagger pointing towards Duncan’s room. Shakespeare intentionally describes the …show more content…
dagger as bloody, for without the blood, the hallucination would have no significant meaning other than Macbeth’s insanity gaining control. However, the hallucination occurs directly after Duncan’s death, whose blood on the dagger represents. Macbeth sees those bloody images and feels the guilt from his “heat-oppressed brain” (51). Shakespeare uses the blood to represent the death of Duncan because of Macbeth’s greedy ambition and how a guilty conscience spawns from his ambition. Macbeth’s greedy ambition also creates vengeance from the past.
As the war for the justified king began, Macbeth faces his deep-rooted friend, Macduff. The fact Macbeth has murdered Macduff’s family exceeds their past friendship; Macduff seeks revenge against Macbeth and begins to draw his sword. Macbeth, however, refuses to fight: “Of all men else I have avoided thee. But get thee back. My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already” (V. iix. 5-7). Shakespeare shows that the blood Macbeth has charged with came from his ambition to become king and to stay king. Macbeth willingly and consciously kills his friend’s family in order to keep the crown. Individuals, overcome by greed, will kill entire families for power. Nevertheless, with greedy ambition comes retaliation. Macduff decapitates Macbeth and Death from past vengeance proclaims the final step of
ambition. With greedy ambition, comes guilt and vengeance. The Tragedy of Macbeth explains how ones hunger for power can overtake sanity and create a guilty conscience that will suffer from retaliation. Through the usage and image of blood, Shakespeare demonstrates how Macbeth’s ambition for power overrules his conscience and friendships, causing a hero to become a guilty and hated villain. Shakespeare expressions concerns of greedy ambition. Individuals should need to learn the difference of a healthy motivation and greed ambition which will lead to tragedies that causes even the kindest heart to bleed out. On my word of honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized assistance on this work.
In Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth hears a prophecy which makes him believe murdering the king is the only way to fulfil said prophecy, shortly after another prophecy causes him to think he is invincible, this inevitably leads to many bad choices that lead to his death. Shakespeare uses symbols such as a dagger, blood, and hallucinations to show that guilt can haunt a person forever when one abandons their morals.(TH) Shakespeare first shows this with the use of a dagger. Before actually going through with the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth sees, “...A dagger of the mind, a false creation...” (Shakespeare 2.1.38), because he already feels guilty for abandoning his morals and plotting to murder Duncan, who he used to be loyal to.(TS) Although Macbeth has killed many people in battle, this would be the first time he murders someone that is innocent, which is why he feels such overwhelming guilt.
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.
Risks lead to many things, adrenaline rushes and financial success, but with a risk comes the chance something can go horribly wrong and lead to possible failure or death. In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, the protagonist macbeth takes the risk of murder and arrogance to get to the top of scotland's social hierarchy, which inevitably leads to his death. Throughout the play Macbeth takes on many different changes and relies on different things that push him to take metaphorical leaps of faith against those who hinder him from taking and holding his foretold place as scotland's king.
Many people have different definitions of the two words, “greed” and “ambition”; some may say they are negative traits and some may say they are positive traits. Ambition is the burning desire and urge to aspire to complete your goals or succeed. Ambition can be a great thing if it is used to better a situation, but sometimes it is used negatively. Another word that can be a positive force or a negative force to acquire something is greed. Greed is something almost everyone has. It is the selfish desire to acquire more than one needs. Greed can also be a positive thing, but normally it is a defective trait, that brings out the worst in people. It results in the need for more and it increases, causing the person to never be satisfied. There
"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." In this quote, said by Mary Wollstonecraft, she explains that evil is a result of man’s own desire. His intention is not for evil, but for himself and his own happiness. Allowing his own ambition to consume him causes him to lose sight of his morals in order to accomplish his goals. In Macbeth, Macbeth’s selfish actions to obtain power teach us that self interest can cloud judgements when making important decisions because people tend to think about only themselves, and not the impact their actions may have on others.
Macbeth’s name meant the son of life and was the origin of the name was in Scottish. He was a tragic hero and a protagonist in the play “Macbeth” written by William Shakespeare. Macbeth was a brave, complex and a capable warrior, but soon later doubted himself. Later on in the play he ends up becoming easy influence and weak.
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
As humans, the desire to gain power is a strong motivation that can easily consume our attention. With people working hard to succeed at school, in the workplace, and in the government, some individuals bend the rules to varying degrees to bring forth success. From cheating off of another person’s test, blackmailing others to keep quiet, or to the extent of assassination to gain power, we as individuals all have the capacity to commit evil actions. This very idea, a transition from good to evil, was shown in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, where the titular Macbeth committed multiple murders for the sake of gaining power. In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare shows the struggle of Macbeth to gain power and uses extended metaphors and archetypes of characters in order to demonstrate the theme of ambition for power causing ills that plague our society.
The play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare illustrates how greed for power and wealth can result in the destruction of oneself as well as others. The play's central character, Macbeth is not happy as a high-ranking thane - leading him to assassinate Duncan to become King, while unknowingly dooming himself. Throughout the play many examples are evident of Macbeth's unquenchable thirst for power.
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...
The story of Macbeth is all about the triumph of evil. The Scottish play shows how evil can get the best of people who are good. In Macbeth, we see an example of the triumph of evil in a man with many good qualities. Macbeth has the qualities of being a brave man, and of being a nice person which is shown throughout the play. He also shows that he would like to stop killing and go back to being good, but simply can’t go back. These qualities are shown throughout the play and will be expanded upon in the following paragraphs.
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a tragedy play written by William Shakespeare in the early 1600’s. Being set almost entirely in Scotland, the play is written to dramatize the physical and psychological effects of ambition and power. Shakespeare wrote this play during the reign of King James I, who was at the time King James VI of Scotland before succeeding to the English Throne in 1603. Shakespeare paid homage to King James’ Scottish Lineage, as well as the witch’s prophecy that Banquo would found a line of kings; that is clearly homage to King James’ claim that he had descended from the historical Banquo. This essay will be a discussion of how The Tragedy of Macbeth offers insight to the message of ambition, and will demonstrate how ambition can
His ambition and greed for the crown overcame him, realizing this, he ends it with a final showdown. The showdown of greed vs purity, Macduff killing Macbeth as his family was slain. The revenge is golden within the readers head, and shows what happened to the man who once controlled the empire. His death came about little late though, but from the beginning his greed had secured the death of him. He could not change, he had to be given to the dead, in this marvelous tragic ending. Macbeth’s greed fueled him throughout the play, but realizes during his fight “Yet I will try the last, (5.8.55)” his death was near. He never thought it would end like this for him, but the ambition that welled up inside him was to
One of the most ambitious individuals of all of all time, Napoleon Bonaparte once stated, “Great ambition is the passion of great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principals which guide them”. Therefore, these words reveal an imperative reality about ambitious individuals which is that the quality of one’s ambition is heavily dependent on that individual’s morals. Thus, it can be acknowledged that if a person’s ambition goes unhindered by a sense of morality and compassion, it can transform into a vile force of annihilation, as it did in Shakespeare’s tragic play, Macbeth. On that account, if one’s ambition lacks compassion, it can morph into the ultimate vices of humanity- greed, envy, and insecurity, thus leading even the most promising individuals into the realms of damnation.
Macbeth and his accomplice, Lady Macbeth, realize that causing another’s bloody death can produce horrible scars on a person’s conscience and mind. Macbeth lies, cheats, and kills just for his own kingdom. His wife, close to his side, pushes him to be bold and commit the first murders. Too late, the Macbeths realize their fate is linked to the deaths of their victims. Their guilt began with the first plunge of the dagger into Duncan. As Lady Macbeth speaks of Duncan’s blood on her hands, she questions the blood of Duncan and “who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (V.I.41-42) The throne was not worth the judgment. Macbeth is truly a dark, malicious, and evil story.