He is soon overwhelmed with ambition and self-doubt. He keeps questioning his own actions, but he is compelled to commit further atrocities in order to cover up all his previous mistakes and wrong-doings. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a strange relationship. The guilty one for the king’s death is actually Lady Macbeth, because she liked the idea of becoming queen so much that she kept pressuring Macbeth into doing it. Macbeth writes a
It drives Lady Macbeth to insanity that will eventually bring her to her collapse. This blood acts as a symbol that foreshadows the pain that Macbeth and his wife will later receive. Without this element in the play, there would not be a driving force that leads the characters to devastation. This appalling icon hounds them to their grave. Not only does this symbol contribute as a function in the work, but also reveals many sides of Lady Macbeth and her husband.
Blanche’s intimacies created her downfall as they weren’t permanent. After Blanches husband committed suicide Blanche was alone and felt the need to be intimate with many men so that she wouldn’t be alone, she thought that the men were helping to detach herself from the horrors of her life and stop herself from acknowledging her guilt from her husband’s suicide; Critic Kathleen Margaret Lant claims ‘Williams does consider Blanche guilty for not saving her husband from his
He is happy to commit murder if that was to be the end of it but he fears the consequences and is concerned that the same fate will befall him, “Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To plague the inventor”. He is moral man, loyal to the King who has recently honoured him. Macbeth tells himself that he cannot escape the consequences of assassinating Duncan yet ‘only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself And falls on the other”. This suggests that his own motivation is ambition, which he understands makes people rush ahead of themselves and ends in a downfall. This is a prophetic reflection of the final denouement of the play.
Duncan finally states that “I have begun to plant thee and will labour to make thee full of growing.” Macbeth is being referred to here as a seed that’s full of potential and with Duncan’s help could flourish and blossom into something magnificent. Again this shows the amount of respect that Duncan has for Macbeth. In addition to his high birth Macbeth has some very positive qualities. One of which was his undying bravery. A soldier describes Macbeth as “Brave Macbeth…Like valour’s minion.” The soldier is implying that Macbeth only works for honour and loyalty.
Macbeth is physically strong and competent, however his weak character causes him to lose his grip over guilt and his insecurities. When he becomes crowned thane of Cawdor just as the prophecies had said, the thought of murdering Duncan crossed Macbeth’s mind, and he starts to seriously consider it. However, during this period, Macbeth reveals his inner turmoil and moral dilemma in his soliloquies. (kinsman, host, and Duncan hath born his faculties so meek, act 1 sc 7) Lady Macbeth knows that Macbeth is too “full o’ th’ milk of human kindness”, so she challenges his manhood by calling him a coward, knowing that Macbeth will in turn, show that he is not a coward by accepting to murder Duncan. This shows that his ambition and self-image of bravery wins over his virtues.
Macbeth – Power, Greed and Ambition In Shakespeare’s play ‘Macbeth’ the character Macbeth was once a strong, noble, brave, heroic warrior then turned to become murderous, big headed, greedy and powerful maniac. Macbeth’s ambition led him to a murderous path but if it wasn’t for his wife lady Macbeth’s greed and hunger for power Macbeth’s ambition would never have been sparked up so much. Ambition is described as the desire for someone to achieve their own goals. It is the necessary quality you need to achieve anything, but too much can ruin it for you and make you do unnecessary things in order to reach the goals. Ambition and greed is a common downfall for those who seek power.
Theme of Macbeth Ambition is a strong desire to do or to achieve something, with determination and hard work. Anything is possible if you work hard for it, but in this case it wasn’t so. Macbeth the main character in the play was a Scottish general who didn’t seem like the type in the beginning to commit murder, but he listened to his wife and had high demands for power and advancement. He killed Duncan against his better judgment and afterwards he felt guilty and paranoid. Toward the end of the play he became extremely depressed.
He devised a plan to murder the current king, King Duncan. His strong will to have what he wants has taken over his good habits and good willed heart and turned him into an ambitious man who wants everything. Once the murder has been committed and some days have passed the guilty trip sets in hard. Macbeth tries to coop with the stress but his guilty conscience makes his mind spin. Macbeth begins to kill more to acquire the throne of Cawdor.
He was of high standing, came from a noble background, and possessed a flaw in his character that brought him to his own downfall. Macbeth represents a tragic hero for many reasons: early in the play he was established as being of great social stature, he suffered from a tragic flaw, vaulting ambition, he experienced suffering, and due to his own actions, this suffering lead him to his degeneration as a character, resulting in his downfall. Firstly, Macbeth is considered a tragic hero because early in the play he was established as being of great social stature and came from a noble background. At the beginning of Act 1, Macbeth was described as a hero: “And fortune, on his demand quarrel smiling,/ Show’d like a rebels whore: but all’s too weak;/ For brave Macbeth-well he deserves that name-/ Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel” (I,ii,16-19). In these lines, a soldier is praising the bravery of Macbeth and is describing his victory to King Duncan.