NCEA 1.5 Formal Writing : Ambition in Macbeth

William Shakespeare is an English playwright well known for his plays which discuss fatal flaws in the human mind. These fatal flaws range from things like extreme measures of love, to being too indecisive. Macbeth, written in 1606, is a tragedy that shows us the dark side of ambition. The main characters of the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, let ambition consume them. This results in them killing others while also sacrificing their own minds and lives due to it. Lady Macbeth is not featured in the play as much as her husband, but, Shakespeare still uses a range of language techniques and dramatic effects to show how a normally ‘positive’ trait affects her so negatively. Her soliloquies, metaphors, and examples of symbolism are all used by Shakespeare to show us the downfall of Lady Macbeth due to her overwhelming ambition.

The play begins with Lady Macbeth desperate for her husband to become king of Scotland after a prophecy he receives from three witches. She knows that it is not an easy thing to make happen as the current king, Duncan, stands in the way. As a result, Lady Macbeth then starts to develop a plan with her husband to murder Duncan, so that Macbeth will take his position as king. Through Act 1 of the play, Shakespeare repeatedly shows us how little ambition Macbeth has compared to his wife. She is constantly having to push him to fulfil the plan and believes that he has good ideas, but lacks the same drive or ambition that she holds. Shakespeare gives Lady Macbeth a soliloquy in Act 1 Scene 5, where she says exactly this, and talks about the frustration of having to be a woman when she is stronger than the man she follows. A quote from her soliloquy says :

“What thou art promised – Yet do I fear thy nature:

It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it”

Lady Macbeth is referring to her husband when she says ‘Yet do I fear thy nature : It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness’. This quote is her explaining how she worries that Macbeth does not have enough evil in him to kill his rivals, for example, Duncan. This has become a famous line in Shakespeare, as it is different because it views compassion as a bad thing. Lady Macbeth continues this idea when she says ‘Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it’. Here, she now believes that Macbeth does have some ambition in him, but lacks the ‘mean streak’ that you need to commit these actions. This entire quote is comparing a ‘weak’ Macbeth to how strong, ambitious, and evil Lady Macbeth is.

This soliloquy, as well as Act 1 & 2 of Macbeth show that Lady Macbeth did start off extremely ambitious with no emotions showing in the beginning. But, as the play continues, she develops strong feelings of guilt and regret. Shakespeare conveys this to the audience by providing Lady Macbeth with metaphors that explain what she is thinking. In Act 3, Scene 2, Lady Macbeth comes to the realisation with a metaphor that she has everything she ever wanted, but is still not happy with her life. She says:

”Nought’s had, all’s spent,

Where our desire is got without content :

‘T is safer to be that which we destroy,

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”

This quote shows us that Lady Macbeth is starting to doubt the road she has taken, which is displayed in the metaphors she uses. The “Nought’s had, all’s spent, Where our desire is got without content” section means that she acknowledges that she has done everything to get Macbeth king, including murder, but is still not happy. Lady Macbeth realises that she would rather be someone killed, than the killer who becomes riddled with guilt and anxiety, which is said in the second part of the quote. The metaphor in this quote comes from the “T is safer to be that which we destroy, Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy”. You cannot dwell or live in joy, as it is an emotion. Therefore it becomes a metaphor. Shakespeare using this metaphor showed only the beginning of Lady Macbeth’s downfall.

As the play continues, the audience learns that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are complete opposites when it comes to ambition. When Lady Macbeth feels no emotion, and is driven by ambition, Macbeth is reluctant to commit crimes and feels weak. As Macbeth reaches power and becomes stronger towards the end, Lady Macbeth loses her mind. She is buried in guilt, and is finally understanding how murdering affects the killer. Shakespeare uses the connection between blood and guilt as symbolism to convey how she is feeling. Previously, when Macbeth murdered Duncan and had blood on his hands, Lady Macbeth told him he could just wash it off and the blood would go away. But it was more than just blood on his hands, as we know that now blood symbolises for guilt. In the first scene of Act 5, Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and hallucinates that she cannot get a ‘spot’ of blood off her hands. But the audience knows what that really means. While sleepwalking, she says :

“Out, damned spot! Out, I say! – One; two;why

then, ’t is time to do ’t. – Hell is murky!—Fie, my

Lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we

fear who knows it, when none can call our power

to account?—Yet who would have thought the

old man to have had so much blood in him”

The ‘old man’ Lady Macbeth is referring to is obviously Duncan, the man she helped Macbeth murder so that he could become king. The quote is accompanied by Lady Macbeth aggressively and repeatedly rubbing her hands at the same time. When she says ”Out, damned spot! Out, I say!”, she is talking about blood. Duncan’s blood. But as blood symbolises for guilt, she is really just wanting her feeling of guilt to wash off. She didn’t realise that Duncan would “have had so much blood in him”, but what she actually doesn’t understand is why she is experiencing emotion over murdering him. Lady Macbeth never felt the guilt she should have in the beginning, and is unsure of why she is now when no one knows her secret. This scene is the peak point when the audience discovers Lady Macbeth has lost her mind, and it is all because of her ambition.

Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth to show how ambition must be controlled in a person. Ambition is a good trait to have, but in this case too much of it led to a person becoming trapped in her own evil mind.  Shakespeare’s use of powerful language techniques and dramatic effects amplified Lady Macbeth’s mental state and made the audience understand how ambition affected her. Her soliloquy is the first language technique used by Shakespeare, and it shows how much ambition she began with and how she views compassion as weakness. The metaphors chosen for Lady Macbeth by Shakespeare show us the beginning of her downfall. She sacrificed everything for Macbeth to become king and was still not “content”. The last scene we see Lady Macbeth in has the symbolism between blood and guilt in Act 5 Scene 1. This scene truely show us the affects of guilt on her mind. Macbeth is a play still studied in the modern world because of how effective Shakespeare is with conveying human emotions, and how much it makes us think. It is still not decided whether Macbeth killed Lady Macbeth or she killed herself. But, either way, it was her extreme ambitious drive that caused her life to end. Ambition is inside all of us, but for Lady Macbeth, too much of it destroyed her entire world.