“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be what thou art promis’d. Yet do I fear thy nature, It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way” (1.5.13--16). In The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, to Lady Macbeth, the “milk of human kindness” is wrongful doing and no self-respecting human will have any use for it. Lady Macbeth is ambitious, and fears that her ‘milky’ husband lacks the mental strength to kill Duncan. At the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth tries to control Macbeth and tell him what to do. As time goes on, Lady Macbeth becomes less ambitious and she begins to feel guilt for the murder of Duncan. Lady Macbeth and her husband switch roles to where he is now the strong ambitious murderer, while Lady Macbeth becomes scared and guilty. Since Lady Macbeth is driven by her ambition her decision to have Duncan killed creates guilt by the end of the play. …show more content…
Ambition can be used for good or evil. At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth uses her ambition for cruelty and wants to gain power. Lady Macbeth shows her cruelty by saying, “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe topful of direst cruelty!” (1.5.38--41). What she means by this is that if Macbeth is too scared and cowardly to kill Duncan then she wishes that she was not a woman so that she could do it herself. She persuades her husband into killing Duncan by saying, “screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail” (1.7.60--61). By saying this, Lady Macbeth is calling her husband a coward if he does not kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth is motivated by her ambition to gain power by forcing Macbeth to kill Duncan so they can become the new king and queen to rule over everything. By having Duncan killed, it causes Lady Macbeth to get into trouble because Banquo becomes suspicious that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were responsible for Duncan’s
Shakespeare presents the theme of ambition in Macbeth. Ambition is a strong desire to do or achieve something, ambition can also be presented in a positive and negative way. Shakespeare presents ambition in a negative way through some characters who are Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and King Duncan. The reason these characters present ambition in a negative way is because they end up dying. Ambition is also present in a positive way through some characters who are Macduff, Witches and Malcolm these are the characters who survive in the play showing that you can be ambitious but not too ambitious.
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.
Lady Macbeth had urged her husband to stop being good and loyal, to put emotions aside and kill Duncan in order to seize the throne, but she herself could not follow her own advice. At first, she tries to convince herself about what must be done, and in act 1, scene 5, asks, “ Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes” She was entirely willing to commit the act herself, and even Macbeth was surprised to see her resolve, stating, “ Bring forth men-children only, For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males.” In act 1, scene 7, she says that, “We fail?... we’ll not fail.” She seems strong, and convinced that nothing they will do will go wrong, but her character’s strength seems to dwindle in act 2, scene 2, where she makes a bold claim, “ Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done ’t.”
However Macbeth only has one desire to kill the king, and that is ambition, which means the desire to do something. This ambition by Macbeth was triggered by her husband convincing him to become the King. This is
Although introduced as a thoroughly hardened, ambitious woman, Lady Macbeth’s seemingly unbreakable character shatters when she is consumed by the demon of guilt. The guilt of Lady Macbeth seems nonexistent when she persuades Macbeth to kill King Duncan, but the heinous acts she and her husband commit throughout the play strain her slowly. Eventually, the guilt Lady Macbeth harbors emerges from her subconscious and crumbles her. The downfall of Lady Macbeth reveals that even the toughest, strongest, and most powerful people can succumb to guilt. At the commencement of William Shakespeare’s
Throughout Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are doing wrong things and they know. They want darkness to hide their actions and desires. This relates to ambition because they want darkness to hide their evil
Ambition is defined as a strong desire to achieve something. Ambition is normally a really good thing to have, because it motivates you to reach a goal that you have set. But in this case, Macbeth had way too much ambition and so he was willing to go to any length to reach his goal, which was to become king. Another reason why Macbeth’s ambition is bad is because he wants to be king for the wrong reasons. The reason he wants to be king is not to make Scotland better, or change some things he feels are not right.
WHO IS MORE GUILTY? In my essay we are going to talk about why I think Lady Macbeth is more responsible for the murder of King Duncan. I think the reason she is guilty is because she put her nightwear, she pushed her husband Macbeth to kill him, and because Duncan was more in charge than she was over all of the people.
But Lady Macbeth was basically calling Macbeth out because he was to scared to kill the king. So Macbeth wants to prove her wrong and he kills king Duncan. So he tells Lady Macbeth he will kill Duncan and she plans the plan for the murder.
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way” (Shakespeare 1.5. 15-18). She fears that her husband, Macbeth, is too good to murder King Duncan to seize the throne. However, Macbeth lacks the viciousness to be able to gain the power to become Thane of Cawdor, which is what the three witches predict. Lady Macbeth commands him to succeed in murdering King Duncan for the title and power to rule.
To conclude, ambition is a powerful force. It can be fueled by visions of power and lead people to change. This is best seen in MacBeth's character dynamic character. He changes from a good person, to someone who will kill anyone in his way to
She insults him and calls him a coward while also questioning his manhood which makes Macbeth come to a realization that not killing the king is the way of a coward and he is motivated to carry out the plan and murder the king because of Lady Macbeth’s insults and speech that she gives him. By successfully persuading Macbeth into murdering the king this shows that Lady Macbeth is controlling towards people and she can be a very manipulative person. It shows that she is the type of person that gets things done by manipulating other people to do her dirty work for her. Lady Macbeth can simply achieve her own goals by getting into anyone’s head and turning their own conscience against them in, which is essentially what she did to her husband. Macbeth would have never went through with killing King Duncan if Lady Macbeth had never persuaded him because he really does have a soft heart and is good and honorable.
The killing of King Duncan would be a surprise to the kingdom because of his kind heart and good soul. Meanwhile for Macbeth, the birth of his son is a threat to the throne. Although Macbeth may seem at fault for his murder, in Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth pushed him too far by gaslighting, manipulating, and creating the whole murder plan for him. Lady Macbeth, like her husband, wants the throne. Throughout these acts, one can assume that Lady Macbeth is a very passionate person and is determined to get what she wants.
Lady Macbeth tries to mask her guilt by covering up for her husband, but eventually comes to grips with her own instability. In Macbeth, Shakespeare asserts that power drives the title character and his wife to insanity, particularly after their conspiracy to kill Duncan. For starters, prior to killing Duncan, Macbeth imagines the likely consequences of his future actions and whether or not they signal his destiny. At the beginning
Macbeth committed murder to King Duncan for his love of his wife. Lady Macbeth wanted her husband Macbeth to commit murder for her own evil ambitions. She wanted her husband, Macbeth to kill Duncan so Macbeth will become king of Scotland and she will become queen (Act 1, Scene 6, Lines 16-31) She manipulates her husband into killing King Duncan by calling her husband a coward .(Act 1,Scene 5, Lines 44-50)