Macbeth Unchecked Ambition Essay

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Throughout Shakespeare's Macbeth, many themes are revealed that have different motifs. Themes such as fate versus free will, the use of power, appearance versus reality, and corrupting power of unchecked ambition are established in this story. The most essential theme being the corrupting power of unchecked ambition. Different motifs are able to reflect Lady Macbeth’s unchecked ambition, but the most commonly used is blood. Shakespeare displays how the power of unchecked ambition can ruin the conscience of the human mind and is expressed by the presence of blood, demonstrated by Lady Macbeth’s guilt after the murder of King Duncan, sleepwalking hallucinations, and lastly to her own suicide. Macbeth a Scottish general, also the Thane of Glamis,…show more content…
Most of these people were killed by Macbeth himself or murderers payed by Macbeth. Out of this group of people, Lady Macbeth was the only one who was not planned by Macbeth to be killed. Through all the guilt she felt, the lies she told, and the hallucinations she experienced, Lady Macbeth could not live the conscience-stricken life anymore and decided to take it away. Macbeth’s reaction toward his wife’s death is cold and blind. Macbeth no longer has any emotion toward anything, he states “She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last symbol of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.” explaining that she would have eventually die and I would one day here of this news. Tomorrow represents the days that come closer to our deaths, and everyday that has already happen takes fools that much closer to their deaths. Macbeth’s attitude toward everything that has happen after his first murder to his own death shows us how much the mind could be changed. As Lady Macbeth states Macbeth was a man too kind to kill a man; now he is able to kill someone without
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