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Lady Macbeth's Ambition Essay

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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. I have experience with seeing ambition that has been taken the wrong way. That usually comes in sports, when a coach or a player wants to win so badly that they start putting others down out of frustration …show more content…

I believe Lady Macbeth is the reason why her husband killed the king. She wanted it done so badly and would have done it herself if she was not a women: “unsex me here.” (I.V.44) Her ambition was so high that she was not even thinking about what would happen if they were to fail: “We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail,” (I.VII.67-69) she was committed to doing this crime the instant she heard of the witches prophecies. The way she convinces Macbeth to kill the king is by going after his pride. She already knew that Macbeth would be too loyal to the king to kill him out of his own ambition, so she attacked his manhood. “When you durst do it, then you were a man,” (I.VII.54) she tells her husband that he can be considered a man once he kills King Duncan. In this situation, Lady Macbeth’s ambition is affecting the people around her in negative ways. Macbeth’s pride is hurt, and the king is killed because of it. This is a situation where an individual's ambition negatively affects the people around them, as well as

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