NCEA 1.5 Formal Writing : Ambition in Macbeth

Macbeth is a play written by William Shakespeare in the early 1600s. Its popularity has lasted for over four decades and is still a very commonly read piece of literature. Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare explores and demonstrates how the pursuit to fulfil ambition can cause destruction when not balanced with morality. The characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth show the evil and immoral route people may be willing to take in order to be successful. During the play, Shakespeare uses different language effects and dramatic devices to show Macbeth’s ambition. Some of these are symbols, silliloquays, actions and pathetic fallacy.

Macbeth’s ambition was caused by supernatural forces, in the form of witches. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth was shown and perceived to be a good man. He was a nobleman, a brave soldier, and he represented the king with honour. This was shown when King Duncan says “O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!”. After Macbeth comes back from battle, he is stopped by 3 mysterious witches, who were believed to be able to see into the future. They name him Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and then the third which says “All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!”. Macbeth believes the witches and is hopeful that he will be named as the next king after Duncan. This is untin Duncan announces Malcolm as the next king. Macbeth doesn’t let that kill his dreams of becoming king, in fact it does the opposite. This is where Macbeth starts to show his ambition to become king, and he doesn’t think anything will be able to stop it from happening.

At this part of the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth start to show the action of ambition, and how it affects their actions and intentions. At this part of the play, the action of ambition is shown by soliloquies, asides and Macbeth’s conversations with his wife, Lady Macbeth. These dramatic devices are important, as they show Macbeth’s honest thoughts and intentions, as he is speaking alone or to his wife, who he can trust. After being told by the witches that he will become king, Macbeth says in an aside, “Stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires.” Macbeth here is talking to god and the heavens, and saying that he wants his desires to be hidden. It can be inferred that Macbeth wants to become the king of Scotland and he wants to dethrone Duncan. Macbeth tells his wife, Lady Macbeth, the news that he had received from the witches and she is alone to do a soliloquy to show her thoughts She believes Macbeth is “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” and doesn’t have enough killer instinct to become the King of Scotland on his own. But Lady Macbeth is still set on her husband to become king, saying “Chastise with the valor of my tongue, all that impedes thee from the golden round”. This shows that she believes nobody can get in the way of Macbeth becoming king and that she will do anything to make it happen. A servant comes and gives her the message that Duncan will be staying at Macbeth’s castle that night. She says the servant “croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.” Here she is saying that Duncan will be killed in Macbeth’s castle that night.

After Macbeth talked about his ambition to become king, he started committing evil actions that he would have to commit in order to seize the crown. By committing these actions, he has lost his humanity and he becomes more evil and unapologetic as the play goes on. The first of his evil actions was to kill the King at the time, Duncan.This was his first murder of the play and he was skeptical about committing it, even almost pulling out at one point, telling his wife “We will proceed no further in this business, he hath honoured me of late, and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.” Macbeth is explaining to his wife that Duncan should live, as he has honoured Macbeth and is also very liked by a lot of people. This quote also references gold, which is shown as a symbol of innocence and morale in the play. After Macbeth telling her that he will not go through with the murder, Lady Macbeth demands that it must happens. She also questions Macbeth’s manhood, saying “When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man.” Macbeth commits the murder on Duncan that night and shows signs of guilt. Because he couldn’t think straight he forgets to leave the weapons at the murder scene and takes them with him. Lady Macbeth demands that he goes back to plant them but he is too shook and can’t bare to go back to see Duncan’s body. Seeing the dead body in the morning, he describes it by saying, “Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood”. Once again the symbol of gold shows up, and Macbeth mentions blood which is a symbol of guilt. Once he becomes king, Macbeth’s evil actions continue and he becomes even more merciless. He gets murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance, but fortunately Fleance escapes. He also murders Macduff’s family after finding out he fled to England to see Malcolm.

The effects of Macbeth’s actions was shown by pathetic fallacy. Pathetic fallacy is how the natural world reacts to people’s actions. On the morning after Duncan’s death, Lenox describes the abnormalities of the previous night. He claims “The night has been unruly” and explained that his chimney was blown down by the wind, there was earthquakes, and other unnatural things that happened. It can be assumed that this was a result of the natural world reacting to the King’s death. Ross and an old man speak about the unnatural events that had been going on. The old man states that he had seen some weird thing in the past, but “this sore night, hath trifled former knowings”. Ross says “Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act”, meaning that these weird things happening are a punishment for something a human has done. Since Duncan’s murder, the weather had been dark and stormy, and the old man says he saw a hawk get killed and eaten by an owl. Ross says that he even saw Duncan’s horses eat each other.

Macbeth’s actions show how ambition can cause destruction and have negative effects. It is still relevant to this day as there are still many examples of people not caring about how they effect others, when they are being ambitious and trying to be successful. This play shows how power can lead to greed and selfishness if not balanced with morality.