Essay and feedback

In the play Macbeth that was written by William Shakespeare during the Jacobean era, the constant theme of ambition through the play. Macbeth shows the consequences of ambition and how it can bring about your downfall if you let your ambition control you/use you.

In Macbeth Shakespeare presents the theme of ambition overpowering. This is evident when Macbeth says "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other." This quotation would suggest how his ambition is now the deciding cause of his actions and he is ignoring all other deciding factors like guilt or empathy. It could also suggest that his ambition is becoming so prominent that all that really matters to him now is moving ahead and reaching greater heights and that he wants to leap to his goal, rather than slowly working up to it. When his ambition is growing out of control and he can't contain it anymore, Shakespeare does this to show Jacobean audiences just how dangerous ambition can be if you let it get away from you.

In the play of Macbeth as a whole, the theme of ambition continues to show, not just through Macbeth but also his wife, Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare uses language to present the theme of ambition through Lady Macbeth as insatiable. This is evident when Lady Macbeth utters the words "unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty." These words could suggest how Lady Macbeth is feeding her ambition and giving into it to do the evil and unspeakable things herambition is leading her to get rid of anything that would make her a woman such as kindness or being nurturing. This would subvert expectations of women in the Jacobean era because the Jacobean era was a patriarchal society but Lady Macbeth has an incredible amount of ambition and takes initiative to get power for herself; the noun "crown" could suggest how she is feeding her ambition by already starting to imagine herself as royalty with a crown on her head. The noun could also suggest how even though she is in a patriarchal society she still has a lot of power and how Macbeth will kill the king after she tells him to. Shakespeare may have presented the theme of ambition in Macbeth this way to show that even if you aren't an ambitious person if you keep on feeding it, it will keep on growing and eventually consume you. He also could have done this to show the Jacobean audience at how much power Lady Macbeth has in a patriarchal society and just how much ambition she has as well.

In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare...

In conclusion, I think that Macbeth has presented ambition as this all-consuming monster. Macbeth lets his ambition lead him to great places but it eventually becomes his harrowing and how him and his wife's ambition lead them to step out of their place in the natural order.