How does Shakespeare present ambition in Macbeth?
Introduction
Define ambition as the play's driving force. Thesis: Shakespeare presents ambition as a destructive power that corrupts even the noblest characters, working through the supernatural, through gender manipulation, and through Macbeth's own moral collapse.
The witches plant ambition as a seed
The witches' prophecy in Act 1 Scene 3 does not command Macbeth to act -- it merely names a possibility. Yet Macbeth's immediate aside, 'Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires' (1.4), reveals that ambition already existed within him. Shakespeare suggests the supernatural activates ambition rather than creating it.
Key quote
"Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires" (1.4)
Context
A Jacobean audience steeped in James I's Daemonologie would have seen the witches as genuine agents of Satan, making Macbeth's willingness to listen a moral failing, not just a political one.
Lady Macbeth weaponises ambition through masculinity
Lady Macbeth converts ambition into action by attacking Macbeth's manhood: 'When you durst do it, then you were a man' (1.7). She redefines masculinity as the willingness to kill. Her own ambition is expressed through the chilling invocation 'unsex me here' (1.5), where she asks to be stripped of femininity so she can act without conscience.
Key quote
"When you durst do it, then you were a man" (1.7)
Context
In Jacobean society, women were expected to be pious and obedient. Lady Macbeth's demand to be 'unsexed' would have been deeply transgressive -- almost demonic.
Ambition escalates into tyranny
After Duncan's murder, Macbeth's ambition does not satisfy itself -- it multiplies. He orders Banquo's assassination ('O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!' 3.2) and the slaughter of Macduff's family without consulting Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare shows ambition becoming self-sustaining: each crime demands another to cover it.
Key quote
"O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!" (3.2)
Context
The escalation mirrors the Gunpowder Plot mentality: one act of treason forces conspirators deeper into violence to protect themselves.
Ambition hollows Macbeth from the inside
By Act 5, ambition has consumed everything Macbeth valued. The 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow' soliloquy (5.5) reveals a man for whom life itself has become 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. Shakespeare's tragic point is that ambition achieved is ambition emptied -- the crown is worthless once it costs everything else.
Key quote
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage" (5.5)
Context
Shakespeare draws on the Aristotelian tragic structure: Macbeth's anagnorisis (recognition) comes too late to save him, delivering catharsis to the audience.
Banquo as the moral counter to unchecked ambition
Banquo hears the same prophecy but resists it, warning that 'instruments of darkness tell us truths' only 'to win us to our harm' (1.3). His restraint makes Macbeth's surrender to ambition a choice rather than an inevitability. Shakespeare uses Banquo to prove that ambition need not destroy -- it is Macbeth's response to it that matters.
Key quote
"Oftentimes to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths" (1.3)
Context
Banquo was widely believed to be an ancestor of James I. Shakespeare flatters the king by making his forebear the character who resists temptation.
Conclusion
Shakespeare presents ambition not as inherently evil but as dangerously potent when unchecked by conscience, loyalty or moral restraint. Through the contrast between Macbeth and Banquo, he argues that the tragedy lies in the individual's choice to surrender to ambition rather than in ambition itself.