Destructive Ambition

"Ambition is the key to success" is a quote is which many people in this world try to live by. Ambition is the strong desire or will to achieve something and it typically requires ones hard work and determination. In the book Macbeth by William Shakespeare, instead of ambition being the key to success, it was what brought him to his tragic demise. Macbeth had this ambition that was so strong, it consumed him and became his own tragic demise.

Macbeth built upon his own ambition In the story, these strange witches appear to Macbeth to tell him the prophecy or what is "supposed" to happen to him in the future. Even though his ambitions were influenced by the witches and even his own wife, he ultimately leads himself to his own destruction. After hearing these stories about the upcoming future, he gets a rush of thoughts going through his mind. "my thought, whose murder yet is but fanatical, shakes so my single stare of man that function is smothered in sunrise, and nothing is but what is not." (Act 1 scene 3) Not once did the witches ever mention murder or the fact that he had to kill someone in order for it to come true. After two things stated in the prophecy happened, it just gave Macbeth more of a reason to believe what they had said and deep down he wanted it to be true. Although the witches are responsible for planting these ideas inside his head, it was his own fault for letting his destructive ambition control him and be his drive for what he wanted.

 Not only did Macbeth let his self ways get to him, but his wife as well played a major part. Lady Macbeth, being quite an ambitious woman herself, wanted to rush the process of her being queen so she tells Macbeth how he should get his title. “Art not without ambition, but without/ The illness should attend it” (Act I, scene 5)   She urges him to act on his desires and seeing as Macbeth is ambitious as well, he agrees to cynical plan on  murdering the King. If that wasn't bad enough, both their ambitious personalities kept pushing it even further. After Macbeth and his wife become successors of the crown, they felt as if they had to continue to gain more power or else the murder was useless.  He realizes that what the witches had said have been true and from then he tries to control his own future. Macbeth felt that since he now had this sense of control, he decided to make all these decisions on his own, without consulting anyone and at this point his ambition has blind sighted him. Within him there is no longer any hesitation when it comes to him trying to obtain power any way necessary. There is now this wild devious force within him that no longer hesitates to commit crimes and do what ever it takes to ensure his title as king.

Macbeth is one of those characters that you can just never be to sure about. At the beginning of the play he is this noble and loyal character that would do anything for his King. Then after someone, aka the witches, had planted these ideas in his head things started to take a toll for the worse. He had let his ambition get the best of him and eventually he let it get to his wife as well. Their ambition was not there key to success but ended up  being the cause of their demise.