Lady Macbeth: the Fuel Behind Macbeth's Ambition

Ambition keeps a man alive but borrowed ambition leads him to destruction. By birth, man is ambitious and far sighting. Ambition and farsightedness lead a man to desired success. Without it, a man is aimless and wayward; but ambition beyond one’s means begets sin and ultimate death. According to Pearl Bailey, the famous American singer and actress-“A man without ambition is dead”. So, we must have ambition and it should be lofty and sophisticated. Ambition is a tragic flaw and it naturally leads to destruction. Many tragic heroes face their doom for vaulting ambition. Macbeth’s ambition for kingship,( William Shakespeare-‘Macbeth’) Doctor Faustus’ ambition for knowledge and power(Christopher Marlowe-‘Doctor Faustus’) and Tamburlaine’s ambition for conquest,(Christopher Marlowe-‘Tamburlaine the Great’), Creon’s ambition for absolute authority,(Sophocles-‘Antigone’) ,Claudius’ ambition for crown and queen,(William Shakespeare-‘Hamlet’) Willy Loman’s ambition for success (Arthur Miller-‘Death of a Salesman’) and Richard-III’s ambition for crown (William Shakespeare-‘Richard-III’), lead them all to destruction. Sometimes, there are some people who work behind the heroes or heroines to make them more ambitious and the protagonist gets accelerated to reach the target. This often brings benefit or destruction to them. In William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, the hero Macbeth is an army General and commander of the battlefield under king Duncan of Scotland. He is greatly instigated and motivated by his loving wife Lady Macbeth, who is often blamed as a fuel behind his ambition and destruction. In this study, I like to focus on Lady Macbeth’s role as a fuel that enkindles Macbeth’s lurking ambition which ultimately brings his downfall and destruction.

ambition, destruction, farsightedness, sophisticated, tragic-flaw, benefitted, instigated

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