William Shakespeare’s Macbeth focuses on the subject of ambition and its psychological burdens. He makes it clear that Macbeth did commit to his hateful deeds responding to the psychological burden of his sins. A respected Thane, who has shown great loyalty to King Duncan, goes from a vigorous and worthy soldier to a shameless murderer presents himself as Macbeth Soon after, Macbeth gave in to ambition and is also encouraged by a prophecy and Lady Macbeth, which he murders the King to take his throne. Macbeth’s betrayal throws himself into a bad state of being guilty and full of fear. Now that he is guilty and fearful, he murders again and again to satisfy his phobia. Macbeth has now became a very evil tyrant and will rightfully kill for his crimes over and over again. "For brave Macbeth well he deserves that name, Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour's minion carved out his passage, Till he faced the slave." (1.2. 16-20).
As soon as Macbeth hears the witches prophesy, you can tell that he was very interested in what they had to say based off the way he was acting.. They tell him that he's about to become king, but also terrifies him.“ His hair stands on end and his heart races, knocking at his ribs." "My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical," says Macbeth, "Shakes so my single state" (1.3.152-3). He sounds like he is horrified by his own thoughts rather than excited that he can take over and become King. Macbeth is controlled by outside forces and that is a problem occurring.
Throughout the play, Macbeth seemed to act as if he were dreaming. An example of him moving as if he was dreaming is when he follows a "dagger" toward the sleeping king's room just before he commits his first murder (2.1.50). Macbeth seems to be a victim of fate. He is a murderer of his own fate which was the problem that began to occur. Macbeth’s wife is another reason as to why and how he has changed as a man and human being. Macbeth is forced by his own dark ambition for murder, death, and fate. He is also forced by his wife even though she lacks humanity. She has actually played an powerful role throughout the play as well. Lady Macbeth deprives herself of being
Macbeth, the main character in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, deals with a variety of personal struggles that cause his unusual behavior throughout the story. Macbeth appears to be delusional, paranoid, and victim of hallucinations and insomnia. Today, these symptoms would lead to the diagnosis of schizophrenia, a disease that blurs the line between what is real and what is not. Schizophrenia distorts the actions, feelings, and thoughts of a person, causing social withdrawal, unresponsiveness to emotional situations, hallucinations, and paranoia. This diagnostic explains Macbeth’s responses and actions towards certain events in the play.
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.
Lady Macbeth's desire to become Queen so quickly awakens Macbeth's ambitious desire to do anything and everything to achieve the prophecy given by the witches that he would unquestionably be King. Although Macbeth had his disregards due to his trust in Duncan, by the end of Act I, it is certain that Macbeth has decided to execute King Duncan. After the regicide of King Duncan, Macbeth's character went from being refrained but willing to regretful and guilty. It begins to become evident that Macbeth's character goes down a spiral. Macbeth's guilt was so detrimental to his well-being that he began to hallucinate, arguing that it could have been a psychological trigger to become destructive.
Despite his fearless character in battle, Macbeth is concerned by the prophecies of the Witches, and his thoughts remain confused, both before, during, and after his murder of King Duncan. When Duncan announces that he intends the kingdom to pass to his son Malcolm, Macbeth appears frustrated. When he is about to commit the murder, he undergoes terrible pangs of conscience. Macbeth is at his most human and considerate when his masculinity is ridiculed and degraded by his wife. However, Macbeth has resolved himself into a far more stereotypical villain and asserts his manliness over that of his wife. His ambition now begins to spur him toward further horrible deeds, and he starts to disregard and even to challenge fate. Nevertheless, the newfound resolve causes Macbeth to move onward.
In Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, destruction is wrought when ambition goes rampant by moral constraints. “Macbeth” amplifies the fight amidst good vs evil, analyzing the psychological effects of King Duncan's murder. This tragedy concerned the plunge of a great man (King) from his position of nobility to humility on behalf of his ambitious pride. This pride causes the downfall of Macbeth that triggers a series of deaths down the line. Ambition is the driving force of the play.
When presented with temptation of something greater, humans are not always in control of their choices, in fact most of the time they will unconsciously try to fulfill that temptation without realizing it. In Macbeth, the character Macbeth and others as well, get many visions of what they can possibly grasp. For instance when Macbeth gets a vision about him being king, Lady Macbeth and him set out to fulfill this, setting aside all morals in important decisions. This is just one of many ways in Macbeth that shows that humans aren’t in charge of themselves, and Macbeth is used as a character to not only show this, but to move the plot along with the help of the witches as it happens. The witches, the most important
Ambition has been a driving force of humanity since the beginning of time. Emotions have always had a strong influence on humanity, specifically emotions that tend towards the ruin of others and the gain another. Throughout the history of humanity there have been many examples of people abusing their position of power, to gain something they more than likely did not deserve. Whether it be Hitler and his repulsive ascension to becoming chancellor of Germany, or Kim Jong Un’s obsession with obtaining nuclear weapons at the cost of the people, humanities struggle with greed is unceasing. No one better illustrates this unrelenting thirst for power more than Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is a good, brave, and beloved man at the beginning of the play with the end of his latest battle heralding a new title for him. Fate though, seems to have different plans for the good, albeit, ambitious Macbeth. He is told by the 3 weird sisters that he will one day become king. Thus igniting the flame of greed within Macbeth, signaling his descent into madness and the guilt he feels towards the deeds he has done. Lady Macbeth is much the same in the sense that once she knew of Macbeths own ambition, it hatched her own deep seeded desire for the crown as well. However, there various similarities end with the death of Duncan and the way they both deal with the guilt over what they did. In the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have similarly great ambition, but this intense avarice in the end leads to their ruin in differing ways.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a well portrayed image of a person’s struggles to not only gain their desire of having power over others, but also their struggle of freeing themselves from the consequences that it brings. Lady Macbeth is a reflection of that, and despite showing no remorse about having to do anything to get her and her husband to the throne at
Ambition is often the driving force in one’s life. It can have an extremely dominant impact on not only yourself, but also many people in your surroundings. You have the ability to control if the outcomes either have a lasting negative or positive effect. When a goal requires determination and hard work to complete, personal morals often take a back seat to the aspiration of accomplishing the goal. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it is clear that like many other great leaders, Macbeth exemplifies the necessary leadership virtue of ambition. Macbeth’s ambition does not just drive him to do great things. It in fact controls him. The playwright explores the idea of how an individual’s ambition can cause them to deceive others, make irrational
‘Macbeth’ is a tragic play written by William Shakespeare in the sixteen hundred, it dramatizes the physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power through the character of Macbeth. ‘The Pursuit Of Happyness’ likewise is a film directed by Gabriel Muccino who portrays a man named Chris Gardener who through his hard work and dedicated ambition goes from living on the streets to a rich stockbroker. In Macbeth and pursuit of happiness, both authors explore how ambition can…. (thesis). Macbeth's ambition is portrayed in a negative light as it is aimed to gain power and status, however, Chris ambition is pushed by his desire to gain happiness and a better future for him and his son. Similarly, both characters endure toxic spousal relationships that help them to tap into their ambition but it leads to different portrayal of ambition. Macbeth and Chris eventually both face the outcome of their ambition for Macbeth it being his doom where else for Chris it being his success. Shakespeare and Gabriel Muccino explore the theme of ambition through the protagonists of both plays.
Both Shakespeare's Macbeth and Ridley Scott's gladiator, cleverly establish the unfavorable effect and repercussions of the blinding ambition through antagonists Commodus and Macbeth. Macbeth transforms from a noble soldier to a tyrant ruler due to his unbridled ambition to become king. Likewise, gladiators ruler Commodus, is depicted as ambiguous as he is controlled by his irrepressible ambition, instigating his undoing. Through both texts, antiheroes 'Maximus' and 'Macduff' render the great chain of being. Through techniques, the composers acknowledge how ambition can often result in having adverse consequences.
Macbeth’s ambitious ways takes over his whole inner self throughout his time of first wanting to be king. Macbeth was thought to be a great leader and war hero before he was king. Macbeth was hatched an idea by three suspicious witches in whom he had never come in contact with before. They told him that he would one day become King of Scotland. After the witches disappeared, he got to think a lot about what they told him and pondered the words they spoke. Macbeth sends a letter to his wife about his feelings of what he had heard. When Macbeth returned back to his castle his wife wanted to lead him down a dark path and feed his ambition. Macbeth decides he wants to go after the crown after consulting his wife. "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, and falls on th'other...." (Act I, scene vii) This shows that Macbeth’s only reason to kill Duncan is for his ambition. Macbeth ends up killing Duncan. The way Macbeth killed Duncan made it a great crime scene. Macbeth still
“I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erlaps itself and falls on th’ other-” (Shakespeare 321). Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth portrays many characters with high aspirations that not only shape the plot and action of the story, but also the themes. Additionally, the intentions of the characters and the intensity of their pursuit varies as the action of the play progresses. Throughout The Tragedy of Macbeth, main characters exemplify the positive and negative influence of ambitions through their thoughts, traits, actions, and motivations.
Macbeth needed Lady Macbeth to do this, for without her, he would have continued to see the horrible act as something he shouldn’t do. In this regard, Lady Macbeth does this very well, she makes Macbeth see things in a different light, tells him how he is erroneous in his thinking and gets him to think how she wants him to. The following quote shows these domineering and manipulating qualities of hers quite well: “Art thou afeard/To be the same in thine own act and valor/As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that…/And live a coward in thine own esteem,/Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’/Like the poor cat I’ the adage?” (1.7.43-49) This passage of Lady Macbeth also sums up her thoughts quite nicely: “What beast was’t it then/… made you break this enterprise…/when you durst do it, then you were a man,/…to be more than what you were, you would/Be so much more the man.” (1.7.53-57) Both of these quotations display Lady Macbeth’s thoughts about Macbeth: he is weak, and he must be a man, while she is strong and would do the murder without a thought. These thoughts clearly show how ambitious she is, and how determined she wants to influence Macbeth’s actions.
Throughout this tragic play by Shakespeare, Macbeth is faced with the question of fate or free will. While fate is a force or power that predetermines events, free will is the ability to decide actions according to oneself (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Throughout the play, Macbeth’s choices were influenced by many other characters which in turn alter his future. In the opening of the play, there were the 3 witches who sparked his initial interest to become King. Then came Lady Macbeth who, by telling him her opinion and persuading him, gave him the idea to kill King Duncan. But in the end it was his own ambition which resulted in his death, because as the play progressed Macbeth’s character took a drastic turn from good to evil. Even though the witches and Lady Macbeth also played a great role in his decisions, they didn 't force him to commit any of the crimes, and so ultimately it was his own choices that led to his downfall.