Effects Of Ambition In Macbeth

To what extent can ambition become harmful to yourself or those around you? When something you desire is unobtainable and the only way to achieve it is to kill others, that would result in harmful ambition. Not only that, but when something you desire is all you can think about, it can also become dangerous. In his devastating play “MacBeth”, Shakespeare highlights the idea through the main character Macbeth how having too much ambition can harm those around you. In the end, Macbeth’s ambitious acts left him dead and did not benefit him in any healthy way. By studying this play, it can suggest to readers that being ambitious is good as it can lead our path in life. At the same time, when it crosses your morals, it can become treacherous. Macbeth’s …show more content…
Throughout the play, Macbeth is informed by witches of the prophecies that his fate has in store for him. However, they never mention once in these prophecies on how they are going to be achieved. By not being fully explained on how they are going to develop, it is up to Macbeth to decide and he ultimately chooses violence to get ahead. We could compare him to people in society who do not have a lot. Once they get exposed to a different, possibly more luxurious lifestyle, they do not want to return to their original life. In Macbeths senario, he gets a taste of what it is like to be king, once he gets exposed to this, he finds the ambition in himself to become king, no matter what the cost. The path in life that he has chosen for himself would be to achieve that title as king, not realizing the harm that is going to come from it. For example, I’ve …show more content…
Towards the beginning, we can see how Macbeth’s perception on becoming king had changed as he did not want to kill anyone for his title. However, in the same scene, Lady Macbeth questions his masculinity and tells him he will never be able to become king if he does not kill the others standing in his way. Shakespeare highlighted the idea of how our ambition can stem from the opinion of others. We can see this from what was previously said, on how Lady Macbeth was in question of how badly Macbeth wanted this title and what he was willing to do for it. When Macbeth suddenly felt like he was letting his wife down or himself, he knew that it was obligatory to kill Duncan. Thus, leading him into his dangerous ambition. We could also say that his ambition was driven by others. Lady Macbeth was the one to spark his ambition, it was not Macbeth. From this, we say that Macbeth was not living to please himself, but others instead. In my life, I’ve always wanted to make my parents proud of my accomplishments, but at the same time, I was not congratulating myself for them. Similar to Macbeth, I was living to please others, rather than focusing on what makes me proud. By not living for yourself, your ambition arises from the idea of wanting to make others happy and what they are going to say of your achievements. This can also lead to too much ambition as well. I constantly strive to make my parents proud