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Greed For Power And Wealth In Macbeth By William Shakespeare

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William Shakespeare’s literary work is still being taught in schools today because of the twisted plot stories and peculiar characters. Throughout the course of time, the greed for power and wealth has allowed people to entirely revise their natural ruling methods and a lot of William Shakespeare’s work revolved around these themes. When a person comes close to achieving a sense of control, all moral implications are completely manipulated as the greed becomes overwhelmingly consuming. Friends and family become enemies to be eliminated and trust is replaced with the paranoia that their once beloved friends are in competition for the very things they have attained themselves. This power corruption that settles in an individual's mind has seen …show more content…

He knew he would become king because of what the witches told him. He didn’t care or really think of all the consequences. Macbeth’s ambition is led by greed and his thirst for more power, the power promised to him through the witches prophecy. Macbeth was too ambitious because the witches prophecy said that he would become king so he didn’t think he had to do things the right way Macbeth assumed that it would just come to him without having to try. Macbeth’s ambition led him to make all the bad choices that he made and those bad choices led to his own destruction. An example of Macbeth’s poor decision making was having the dinner party and inviting everyone when he shouldn’t have had any company over. Macbeth became distraught at the dinner party when he saw Banquo’s ghost and he acted irrationally. “I am in blood Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er.” (Macbeth. Act 3. Scene 4). Lady Macbeth had to tell everyone he has been feeling under the weather (Act 3. Scene 4). A lot of the destruction caused by Macbeth could have been avoided if he wasn’t so ambitious. Macbeth might not have made as many mistakes and acted so irrationally if he didn’t know he was going to become king because then he would have had to work for the crown and he would not have been filled with the misleading truths of the witches prophecy. Consumed with ambition, Macbeth was able to …show more content…

The first murder that Macbeth commits is that of King Duncan. At first Macbeth was plagued with guilt but as the play went on, Macbeth began to show signs of no guilt or remorse for what he does. Macbeth ordered to have Banquo and his son Fleance killed because they posed as threats to Macbeth’s spot on the throne. While Macbeth was trying to kill Banquo, his son acted quickly and got away before he could meet the same fate as his father. Although Lady Macbeth committed suicide, Macbeth indirectly was responsible for his wife’s death. In the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth was more in charge than Macbeth and she suggested they kill King Duncan. Coming off tough and not scared of any consequences, Lady Macbeth soon realized she was in over her head when she went up to King Duncan and could not measure up to the horrible deed she and Macbeth conjured up together. King Duncan looking like her father while he slept is the excuse Lady Macbeth admitted to Macbeth when he asked her if she had gone through with the murder (Act 2. Scene 2). That’s when Macbeth decided to perform the act himself. Lady Macbeth was overcome with grief and guilt for the murder of King Duncan that she would sleepwalk. The gentlewoman tells the doctor that Lady Macbeth admits to awful things while she sleep walks. While the doctor was around, Lady Macbeth confessed to murdering King

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He acted because his first prophecy came true about being thane of cawdor. Macbeth is convinced after a talk with his wife he finally decided to kill Duncan. In this part it shows how greedy Macbeth and lady Macbeth are in the beginning. “Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill, why hath it given me earnest of success, commencing”. (Macbeth Act 1 scene 2 lines 139-40)

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When in a relationship, one's quest for power, can result in an endless effort to satisfy this desire, producing a tragic outcome. In the tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare explores how greed and ambition has an influence on one’s actions, leading to the occurrence of a tragedy. In the case of Macbeth, greed and ambition results in Macbeth becoming a highly manipulative, and dangerous individual. The dominant status Lady Macbeth owns, allows her to influence Macbeth into committing harmful acts. When Lady Macbeth’s dominant status begins to deteriorate, Macbeth begins to mature, gradually becoming the more dominant individual within their relationship.

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Both greed and power, if not controlled, can lead to destruction. Throughout William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, Shakespeare uses both characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to demonstrate how ambition can change one’s personal relationships. As in the beginning of Act 1, Scene 7 Macbeth and Lady Macbeth do not share the same ambition, and it is because of this that their relationship lacks love and affection however through the use of persuasion and other means, Lady Macbeth is able to get Macbeth to pursue her ambition. This not only changes their relationship drastically but it also changes Macbeth’s attitude towards ambition. Throughout the play, Shakespeare shows us through Macbeth, the possibility for ambition to eventually turn into greed and how the lust for power may corrupt us.

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Greed for power has always been evil and even made a saint turn into a demon. As the quote goes “All power tends to corrupt and an absolute power corrupts absolutely” (unquote), which is true not only in the fictitious stories but also in real life and Shakespeare, th9e greatest writer ever known, has always been in habit of making fictitious character come alive and Macbeth is no exception to the rule. The character of Macbeth has two sides, one which is wholesome while other been dubious. He symbolized great ambition but went overboard and in the process not only became corrupt but also became a killer. Macbeth reflects great strength but within he has his own weakness and thus good over took evil resulting in its downfall and finally his own death.

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In the play Macbeth by Shakespeare, the main character Macbeth believes he will be king. The power he thinks he will have causes him to kill the people who stand in his way Of fulfilling his destiny. The Spiderman quote “With power comes great responsibility,” relates to the theme of Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Macbeth and the actor Lindsay Lohan, share the trait that people with power often abuse it, corruption is frequently the result of responsibility to great for one person.

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Greed for power leads corrupt leaders to pursue power through ruthless and violent ways, putting their countries in an unstable state. Macbeth commits murders and violent acts to earn his absolute power, but his corrupt mindset of yearning power leads to instability in the Scotland. After hearing from the witches, Macbeth admits that, “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical/ Shakes so my single state of man/ That function is smother'd in surmise /and nothing is but what is not.”

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At the end of the play Macbeth ambition was too big and it made him went to the wrong path which led to his death. First reason, Macbeth was thinking about murdering the king and it’s not a good choice. Then he finally did his unforgivable move which is kill the king when the king was visiting his castle. He couldn’t control himself because his ambition was getting too big and it swallow him. A quote in the play said ”

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Judge: “The prosecuting attorney may now speak.” Prosecuting attorney: “My lord, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, today I present to you the man that put Scotland in a catastrophic state. Leaving the people confused and uncertain about what happened to their beloved king. But today, I have evidence that will prove to your majesty that Macbeth is guilty. Macbeth is charged with first-degree murder contrary to f. 236 (6) of the Criminal Code of Scotland.

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Lady Macbeth plans to invite king Duncan over for dinner, but really she is convincing Macbeth to murder him. She influences him to kill Duncan because he is the only one standing in the way of Macbeth becoming king. Lady Macbeth plans the killing but convinces Macbeth to do the dirty deed. Lastly, Lady Macbeth is one of the causes of Macbeth’s failure because she repeatedly questions Macbeth’s manhood until she persuades him to make a bad choice. “When you durst do it then you were a man” (1.7.53-58).

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It is human nature to want power, to be at the top of the pyramid, to be king/queen, but that comes at a price as shown in Macbeth. In the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth will do anything to have absolute power and nothing stands in their way. From killing to going completely mad, they will become the next king and queen at all costs. The ambition and the want for power is so high that they kill many, they do whatever they can to be one step closer, and they go completely insane, all because they want that absolute power.

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Power is always coveted in any society and the world of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is no different. In the play, Macbeth, a noble lord, shows his hunger for power with thoughts to remove an heir to the throne from power. Macbeth’s impatience to be king leads him to stain his honor by using murder. Macbeth travels further down the path of evil by arranging the assassination of a friend.

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Macbeth had become everything that he had ever wanted to be which was the king of Scotland and when the witches told him that someone else was going to take his crown he went to extremes to try to keep them from doing that which was eventually what lead to him dying. The witches had told Macbeth that the sons of Banquo would take his crown so he decided to have Banquo and his son killed Macbeth said, “Our fears in Banquo stick deep/ And in his royalty of nature reigns that which would be feared”(3.1.49-51). Macbeth did everything he could to protect his crown, but that is eventually what lead to his downfall and his death. He killed his best friend Banquo which was when his ambition had gone to far and was the beginning of his decline.

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Macbeth had another chance to change his outcome. his wife was consumed with the idea that he would become king, so much so that she pushed him to kill the current King. She said she couldn 't do it because King Duncan looked too much like her own father. Macbeth could have easily dismissed this and not listened to his mentally dwindling wife, “Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, to cry ‘hold, hold!’” He followed the instructions of his wife and killed the king.

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Blind Ambition and Greed The play “Macbeth”, by William Shakespeare illustrates many themes through the characters from the beginning to the end of the story. But the main central theme introduced is Ambition and Greed. As the play goes on we read how Macbeth permits his Ambition and Greed to dictate the outcomes and tragedy’s that occur to himself and others.

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1241 Words | 5 Pages

Macbeth’s ambition is one of the most prominent things that drive Macbeth in the play and truly becomes evident when he hears of the Witches prophecies. When the witches stop talking, he demands to know more. “Stay you imperfect speakers, tell me more” (I, III, 73-74). This portrays his excessive curiosity on the subject as well as his craving for more desirable prophecies. This ambitious nature and craving for power is also demonstrated only moments after hearing the witches, when he starts formulating a plan to kill Duncan in order to make the third prophecy come true.

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