Faith Carroll Ms.DeHartH Honors English IV 08 October 2024 Why did Macbeth and Hamlet’s Mental Health Decline? Macbeth and Hamlet only suffer mentally trying to gain their ambition, so why would they thrive on something so harmful? Macbeth and Hamlet are pressuring themselves with the only motivation they have. Their desire to have power or revenge. Which only leads people to lead with anger to solve their problems or use violence to get what they want in life. Macbeth’s and Hamlet’s mental health changes by having an obsessive ambition because they do immoral deeds to prove themselves worthy, they both have an unbreakable will to achieve their goals, and choose to continue to be violent even though they struggle with conflict within themselves. …show more content…
Then tries to kill him in England. All of this shows that Macbeth and Hamlet are unwilling to change their behavior to cause less mental pressure on themselves because they are both more motivated to continue their goals after losing everything they had like loved ones and sense of character. This is why Macbeth and Hamlet's unbreakable will to achieve their goals causes their mental health to suffer. Foundationally, both Macbeth and Hamlet’s mental health is struggling under the weight of their own obsessions, since it makes them violent and has constant conflict within their decisions. According to Act I of Macbeth “First of all, I am his kinsman and his subject, so I should always try to protect him. I can’t spur myself to action. The only thing motivating me is ambition, which makes people rush ahead of themselves toward disaster,” (1.7.13). To rephrase this, it means that Macbeth is thinking about the close relation he has with King Duncan and that killing Duncan will only lead to a disaster if he is only doing it for his ambition. However, Hamlet finds a way to kill his uncle earlier, but stops