Category: Macbeth Ambition

“From now on, as soon as I decide to do something, I’m going to act immediately”. William Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Macbeth’ explores Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s ambition for power and how it leads them to guilt. The fight between Macbeth’s ethics and desires eventually leads him to justify his actions in his mind so he can be at peace with his conscience.

Macbeth’s ambition to become king leads him to battle with his conscience over what he must do to achieve his aspiration. When Macbeth is outside Duncan’s room soon to murder him, he sees a vision of a bloody dagger and asks himself “are you nothing more than a dagger created by the mind, a hallucination from my fevered brain?” Macbeth questions seeing this dagger as it foreshadows what he is about to do. The bloody dagger can be seen as a symbol of his ambition and a guilty conscience.

Further to this, at the dinner table where he sees Banquo’s ghost – “(to the GHOST), You can’t say I did it. Don’t shake your bloody head at me. “Macbeth is hallucinating seeing Banquo’s ghost criticising him. Macbeth uses murderers to kill Banquo, as he thinks it will keep his mind clean from the inner guilt that he experienced when he murdered Duncan.

It is clear that Macbeth’s conscience is the battle between his guilt of deceiving Duncan and his good friend Banquo and justifying his actions that led to the murder of Duncan and the role he played in having Banquo assassinated, he sees it as not having blood on his hands.

After the murder of Duncan Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are plagued with guilt. This is demonstrated when Macbeth expresses such things as, “Will all the water in the ocean wash this blood from my hands? No, instead my hands will stain the seas scarlet” Macbeth saying that he can’t wash the blood off his hands even with all the water in the ocean is used figuratively to say that he cannot get over the sin he has committed.

Another example of this regret is stated as “Rather than have to think about my crime, I’d prefer to be completely unconscious. Wake Duncan with your knocking. I wish you could!” Macbeth is contrite for his actions and wishes that he hadn’t gone through with the killing, he wishes that Duncan could still be alive. Similarly, is Lady Macbeth’s situation of guilt, “the smell of blood on my hand. All the perfumes of Arabia couldn’t make my little hand smell better.” Lady Macbeth says this when she is sleepwalking and it is clear that her mind is infested as she displays agitation.

These examples clearly illustrate that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have their demons (so-called scorpions) to face. Macbeth uses murderers to do his bids for him.

When Macbeth organised with murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance we don’t see Macbeth’s conscience being expressed. Before and after killing Duncan Macbeth was hesitant about the undertaking of the deed, he needed his wife to spring himself to action. But now he experiences no indecision and doesn’t refer to his wife. I believe this is because he is using murderers to relieve his guilt, and as long as he believes he didn’t do it by his own hands, his mind won’t be full of scorpions.

This is unchanged as when he raided Macduff’s castle and seized the crown of Fife. This happened just after his second encounter with the witches when he declared that “From now on, as soon as I decide to do something, I’m going to act immediately”, he bared no remorse for MacDuff’s family. Using murderers to do his dirty work. Macbeth’s desires overshadow that of his morality.

In summary, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are diseased with guilt after the murder of Duncan. Macbeth’s battle with his morals drives him into hallucination, and he lessens his remorse by using killers to do his deeds, eventually getting his loyal friend assassinated.

In the end, Macbeth was a ruthless killer, and for that reason, I believe that a good conscience can’t be ignored, but it can be justified in one’s mind so that they don’t face the guilt of their actions and it isn’t seen as immoral to them. You could say that the main message of Macbeth is that devastation follows after ambition isn’t questioned by the conscience.

Macbeth addresses the themes of ambition and the effects of guilt. There are a pair of main things that stand determined the viewer’s eye that effects of guilt. Macduff’s heart was full of the feeling of love, hate, guilt,. almost the same as Lady Macbeth, this gave Macduff the (desire to do something/reason for doing something) to kill king he felt stress and guilt by the stains of the inexperienced water, red with king’s blood he would never get eliminate the guilt of the (extremely competitive) act towards Macbeth .william Shakespeare uses techniques to show the audience how ambition and effects of guilt impact the play.

Lady macbeth is one of the key characters in shakespeares play macbeth is a clear representation of what guilt can do to a person. Lady mac beth had committed suicide in Act 5 scene 5. She had committed suicide due to the fact that she had killed an innocent human being and she could not unsee the blood on her hands. Therefore shakespeare foreshadows the fact that when killing another human being there will always be their blood on your hand not matter how many times you wash your hands. Lady macbeth ended up killing her self due to the fact that she could not stop seeing the blood and the guilt go to her.

The most significant effect of ambition “Two truths are told

As happy prologues to the swelling act Of th’imperial theme”

Macbeth speaks these lines as he (understands/makes real/achieves) that the witches’ prediction (that he will be Thane of Cawdor) has come true. He immediately starts to wonder whether this means that their third prediction (that he will become king) will also be true. The eagerness with which he turns to this idea hints that he finds the possibility appealing, even though he also (understands/makes real/achieves) he would have to commit a terrible and violent act in order to (accomplish or gain with effort) the position. These lines hint at Macbeth’s desire to do great things and predict (the future) his later actions even though, at this point in the play, he seems to refuse to think about acting upon it. Macbeth later on during the play goes through and the guilt leads to him losing his mind because of how ambitious he was it made him lose his mind

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine

Macbeth speaks this line when he meets his wife right after murdering Duncan. He refers to each the literal blood on his hand however additionally to his sense of guilt. He uses grand and dramatic language to suggest that the blood could stain all the world’s oceans red. His language hints that the results of his action will not be easily hidden, even though his wife hints that blood can be simply washed away. He can forever be a modified man as a results of what he has done. Interestingly, later in the play, Lady Macbeth will also see or hear things that aren’t there that she has blood on her hands and is unable to get them clean, showing (by using a physical object to represent an idea or emotion) her sense of guilt.