Essay On Ambition In Macbeth

What is ambition? Is it good or bad to have it? By definition, to have ambition is to have “an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction…and the willingness to strive for its attainment” (“Ambition”). Although this is the typical way that people think of ambition, the true nature of it is actually quite different when you look at it closely. Ambition is a negative trait because it grimly affects mental health, causes negative actions, and often leads to failure. In the first place, ambition often has terrible impacts on mental health, which causes the trait to become more negative. One of these bad impacts is that ambition causes people to become obsessive over what they are trying to achieve. The greek philosopher Aristotle

Frequently, women hear the word “ambitious” as an insult to them, whether it be because they are

A common action that ambition causes people to do includes betraying others. In the story of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the character Macbeth kills both King Duncan, under whom he was a general, and another fellow general, Banquo, in order to become and sustain being king (Shakespeare). Provided that Macbeth’s ambition to become ruler led him to kill two of his close allies confirms that ambition forces people to carry out ruinous actions that can end with more hurting than helping — just as it did for Macbeth, who died trying to accomplish his ambition. In addition to betrayal, ambition also causes people to strongly crave superiority. This can also happen in other species too. While this may not seem very damaging, just as the primatologist Frans de Waal conveys, ‘“You can have a male chimp that is the most laid­back character, but one day he sees the chance to overthrow the leader and becomes a totally different male. I would say 90% of people would behave this way too. On an island with three people, they might become a little dictator’” (qtd. in Kluger). Because of this yearning for ascendency, ambitious individuals often become overstressed from the amount of work, but more importantly, they often become excessively overconfident and cocky, making others dislike them – furthermore supplying ambition