Ambition

• Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are ambitious and this drives their evil behaviour.
• At first, Macbeth is unwilling to give in to ambition but the witches and Lady Macbeth tempt him. This results in disaster and Macbeth losing everything.
• He discovers that being King doesn't bring him any satisfaction, nor does being in control as he cannot make decisions for himself, as seen when he returns to the witches.
• Macbeth allowed his ambition to overcome his sense of what is right. This is a key message in the play and what causes it to be a tragedy.
• Shakespeare personifies Macbeth's ambition to alert the audience to how out of control this trait is. In some senses, this produces sympathy in the audience, as we feel that his actions are not completely his fault as he's not strong enough to control them.
• "Glamis and Thane of Cawdor / The greatest is behind" (Macbeth 1:3)
• "My thought, whose murder is yet fantastical / Shakes so my single state of man / That function is smothered in surmise / And nothing, but what is not" (Macbeth 1:3)
• "The Prince of Cumberland: that is a step / On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap / for in my way it lies" (Macbeth 1:4)
• "Thou wouldst be great / Art not without ambition" (Lady Macbeth 1:5)
• "I have no spur / To prick the side of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th'other" (Macbeth 1:7)
• "But screw your courage to the sticking place / And we'll not fail" (Lady Macbeth 1:7)
• "Thriftless ambition that will raven up / Thine own life's means. Then 'tis most like / The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth" (Ross 2:4)
• "Had I power, I should / Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell / Uproar the universal peace, confound / All unity on earth" (Malcolm 4:3)
• "What man dare, I dare" (Macbeth 3:4)