Macbeth- Link to other key themes

• Appearance vs reality- Consumed by ambition, Macbeth desperately craves a cloak of duplicity. His trues desires beneath a carefully constructed facade, a mask he desperately hopes will conceal his ruthless agenda.
• Violence- Macbeth’s excessive ambition causes him to justify violent and heinous acts.
• Supernatural- Macbeth’s engagements with the supernatural serve as a catalyst for his ambitious aspiration, as he interprets the prophecies bestowed upon him as a mystic insight, further igniting his desire for power and fulfilment of destiny.
• Guilt- Macbeth’s conscience, tormented by guilt, is a direct consequence of his insatiable ambition. His hubris, manifesting as an overwhelming desire for power, becomes the reason for his eventual physical and psychological downfall.
• Gender- Macbeth’s relentless pursuit of kingship is propelled his emasculation he faces from his wife, Lady Macbeth, through her undermining of his manhood, poses a threat to his sense of identity, thereby intensifying his ambitions as she wants to assert and validate his masculinity.