Macbeth Corruption Analysis

Is burning ambition the driving force of corruption? This powerful question leaves many pondering the good or bad stigma of ambition, illustrated in Shakespeare's masterpiece, Macbeth. Looking into how modern film renditions help prove Shakespeare's stance on this thought, Kayla Ram reports.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the memo of Macbeth seems all too familiar, does it not? This extravaganza still seems very relevant today even if this literature was created 400 years ago.
"Thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without/ The illness should attend it" (Act I, 5, 13-16).
Even today ambition is the driving force for corruption and to realize this you need to look no further than Macbeth.

Shakespeare's Macbeth provides a dire

Shakespeare establishes majority of Macbeth’s context from the Elizabethan values a great deal in his exploration of the themes of kingship. It was said that God's chosen representative on earth was the king, therefore the Duncan was supreme upholder of order on earth, which soon lead to the popularity of treason. Macbeth eerily mirrors the failed attempt to assassinate King James discovered in 1605. One year before the creation of Macbeth, officials discovered vast amounts of gunpowder in the basement below King James referred to as the gunpowder plot. Under divine rights regicide was the worst crime possible hence, it is no coincidence that one of the most striking references to early seventeenth-century England in Macbeth appears directly after Macbeth kills Duncan. At the beginning of act two, Macbeth's porter answers the knocking at Macbeth’s gate. Whilst grousing about the persistent pounding, the porter refers the knocking as an
"equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale"
(II.3.8-10).
This line is a direct reference to the book of Henry Garnet who was executed for his participation in the failed assassination. The gunpowder a symbol of burning ambition, as both forces ignite with a source of power. Correlating the corrosive power ambition holds on Macbeth. Considering Macbeth was about to commit the worst crime possible during his allegiance to the throne. In Act I, scene 7, lines 25-28, Macbeth reflects on his decision to kill Duncan and concedes that he has no justifiable reason to do so. He admits,
"I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but