Ambition is the driving force of the actions and decisions people act towards their impulses to get what they want. Human nature tends to carry the trait of ambition everyday. Within the play of Macbeth, the characters face the challenges of what ambition may bring a person. Macbeth is a Scottish General, who has been influenced by the Prophecy of Three Witches. The witches prophesied Macbeth’s future, that he will be “Thane of Cawdor” and king. Macbeth was aware of his actions and poor choices but he still continued to race towards his yearning. Shakespeare creates the characters of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth to portray the harm that ambition can create while being influenced to gain power.
Throughout the play, Shakespeare develops the character Macbeth to be a strong leader that is heavily influenced by others through his actions by allowing Lady Macbeth to guide him in the path of wrong doings. Not
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She was more of an influence towards their ambition rather than an actual wife. Macbeth tells the messenger “She should have died hereafter./There would have been a time for such a word./Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day/To the last syllable of recorded time” (V.5 Nineteen-Twenty One). Macbeth’s lack of empathy is a result of his overpowering ambition. It leads to him pushing away his previous obligations in favor of his own selfish goals. Macbeth’s only ambition is to keep his throne and survive. Macbeth also states, “Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts/Cannot once start me” (V.5 Fourteen-Fifteen). The case that he thought of the death of his wife so callously reveals his insatiable thirst for more power, and how he had become so corrupt that nothing else mattered but his greed. Macbeth’s downfall was clearly visible in his reactions to the consequences of his greed, showing how he slowly succumbed to his unchecked