Internal Limitations In Macbeth

Ambition When someone has ambition it can be the motivation behind their rise. While they can achieve great things along the way, their downfall can come just as quickly. Ambition can cause someone to make terrible decisions and the consequences of those actions contribute to their fall. Many poems, stories and plays written during the time of Middle English, poets would often compose their writing around a few select themes.

Macbeth is shown to be both loyal and disloyal at the same time. His greatest loyalty is with himself and his ambitions. As a result of his strong loyalty to himself, Macbeth betrays King Duncan, Banquo and his morals. He betrays his King by murdering him in his sleep. In doing so he shows his loyalty towards his ambitions.

Macbeth’s relationships with every character starts off great but as he starts to lose his mind many friendships are lost and every relationship he had was damaged. “My brave relative! What a worthy man!” (Shakespeare 5).

Lady Macbeth very carefully selects specific manipulative words to persuade Macbeth into deceiving his peers and murdering Duncan. She displays a succinct plan on how the nights actions shall be carried out. Her first step is to convince Macbeth that the way he presents himself is how people will view him. Lady Macbeth achieves this by stating “Your face, my thane, is as a book as where men/ May read strange matters” (1.6). Lady Macbeth is saying that what Macbeth is expressing through the way he looks and acts is taken to be weird and abnormal.

In the play Macbeth written by Shakespeare many different themes can be revealed throughout the play. Betrayal has different definitions like one friend going against another for their own gain. The theme of betrayal is illustrated in Macbeth actions to murder King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff leaving his family. Macbeth demonstrates betrayal by killing King Duncan.

3. THE UNDERSTANDING OF AMBITION IN SHAKESPEARE’S AGE In today’s world, ambition is considered a positive characteristic of people as it is defined in the English Oxford Dictionary as “a strong desire to do or achieve something”. It means a person wants to achieve or obtain success, power, honor, wealth or accomplish a specific goal. Hence, ambition is a center of our aims and a deep desire for some type of accomplishment and it inspires people to realize their dreams.

Having someone under your trance, sound like an idea? This type of thing doesn’t occur all the time, that’s unless you have magical powers. However, by having someone under your trance can lead to many difficulties. Macbeth, a play written by William Shakespeare, observes this possibility and acts as an amazing example of the many outcomes of Macbeth’s downfall. The character most responsible for Macbeth’s downfall is Lady Macbeth because Lady Macbeth intrigues and taunts Macbeth into killing King Duncan and the start of additional murders of others, and Lady Macbeth shows what Macbeth really wants, which is to be forever royalty.

Throughout the course of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, ambition is the driving force behind all the characters in the story. Ambition fueled them to go after power and to get something that they want. Similarly, ambition is also the driving force behind all the people in the world. Ambition can be good and bad, for many people ambition is wanting to achieve something and doing anything to achieve that. On a more extreme note there are also those who see no more finish line, they keep going and are never satisfied with where they are at.

My visual representation of the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare focuses on the specific interpretation of the play in relation to the Great Chain of Being. In my illustration, I draw Macbeth and Lady Macbeth climbing the Great Chain of Being to represent how they metaphorically elevate themselves from their proper place in society to become King and Queen. Although the characters in the play are unaware of the chain, their actions and the consequences that surface from their rule exemplify the very tenets of the philosophy. In my visual representation I target Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s key characteristics as seen at the beginning of the play.

Macbeth’s ambitious nature led him to his rise and his downfall. As the play unfolds, Macbeth’s character drastically changes. There were two major turning points in his charcater; in Act I, when he heard the prophecy of three witches, and Act III, when he decided that he would follow through with his actions and plans. Those two points were also when he begain his rise and his downfall respectively, because they were driven by his ambition. Before Macbeth heard about the witches’ prophecy, people admired him for his strengths as a warrior.

When it came to Duncan’s murder, a lot of factors came into play. It began first with the Weird Sisters telling Macbeth of his future king status. The plot continued when Macbeth told his wife of this news. Duncan’s death was sealed when Lady Macbeth persuaded his husband into killing Duncan. The two main causes of Duncan’s death was Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Throughout Act I of Macbeth, Macbeth encounters three witches who give him three prophecies. These prophecies state that Macbeth will become Thane of Glamis, Cawdor, and king. “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth!

Ambition is a powerful emotion in an individual's mind. It can benefit them or drastically hurt them. I have noticed in the play, “Macbeth” by WIlliam Shakespeare, that most of the important characters, especially Lady Macbeth, are very ambitious people. Once Lady Macbeth hears about the witches prophecies, her ambition takes over her conscience. She never thought twice about murdering the king: “yet I do fear thy nature; it is too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way,” (I.V.15-17) she wanted Macbeth to kill Duncan but feared he was too nice and too loyal to his king.

Hamartia is the fatal flaw of a tragic hero. Macbeth’s hamrita is being too ambitious. One if the time that Macbeth showed his ambition is when he killed Duncan. Macbeth killed Duncan because he wanted to be king, but before that, Duncan, the King of Scotland had just pronounced his son next in line for king. Macbeth says this to himself when he is preparing to kill Duncan.