How Does Shakespeare Present Ambition In Macbeth

In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is described with positive epithets of his nobility and a character who is well loved such as ,”brave Macbeth” , “O valiant cousin”, “well he deserves that name” but as the play continues, he begins to slowly fall into a trap by following his ” black and deep desires” and eventually becomes a “tyrant” something that is detested. Overall, Shakespeare presents ambition as something which can corrupt a character and lead to an inevitably tragic fate for them.

Starting with this speech, Shakespeare presents ambition as something that Lady Macbeth needs to complete her desires, Shakespeare utilises metaphors to convey Lady Macbeth’s feelings towards Macbeth , “it is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness” the

The witches are shown to be ambitious as they are very persistent on causing chaos, they take in part of influencing Macbeth’s behaviour that he even starts to sounds like them, however they do not control his actions as he has the Christian view of ‘freedom’ where Adam and Eve disobeyed and chose to listen to the serpent which leads to the sin of eating the forbidden apple, he has the choice of killing Duncan for his own ambition to become King, therefore the witches nor lady Macbeth should be scapegoats for Macbeth’s tragic downfall. Alternatively, the witches not controlling the fates of others could be argued, as the witches supposedly “spin the threads of life“, so Macbeth is not at

And bade them to speak to him” the verbs “chid” and “bade” shows his interest toward the prophecies, he is so intrigued by the weird sisters that they occupy his thoughts, “ I dreamt of the three weird sisters”, however unlike Macbeth he seeks refuge in God, “ Merciful powers, restrain me in my cursed thoughts” his “cursed” thoughts of murder are his ambition, “cursed” could infer that it is the witches’ doings, by following God he is “yet much happier” and will be rewarded. Banquo is believed to be the descendent of King James, so Banquo is presented as a good Christian epitome with his morals. In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses animals to symbolize the fears of ambition, it is a reminder that the witches’ have a role in Macbeth’s tragic downfall as witches were known to have animal familiars,” we have scorch’d the snake, not kill’d it” the aggressive words “scorch’d” and “kill’d” shows that actions of ambition leads to violence and he slowly starts to follow the stereotypes of women “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck”