Human ambition is often a double-edged sword, on which many people fall. Without drive, humanity would be lost in the dark ages, doomed to stagnate. However when ambition is left unchecked, humans pay a grave price. In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the tragic characters often have ambition to thank for their fatal or perilous ends. Ambition cannot exist in a pure form, free from consequence because there will always be a dark path to take that might seem to be justified by the ends. The natural order of humanity is disrupted once Macbeth indulges his ambitions.
In addition, Macbeth begins to lose sight of what he wanted and what he aspired to be originally. He reaches a place of no return. In the end, Macbeth and his wife along with the whole of Scotland suffer due to his uncontrolled and dark ambition. It results in paralyzing guilt and delusions with the Macbeths, sending them on a free fall to their deaths. Ambitions allow for people to rise up faster than those who wait to be noticed, but when these promotions are forced, the natural order of things is thrown off course.
The witches, unnatural agents of chaos, gave Macbeth the prophecies he eeded to realize his potential but the witches visions of success come at a steep price. And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence (1. 3, 27) Banquo says this to Macbeth following their meeting with the witches. He is saying that people are sometimes tricked into their own demise with false truths.
With this deception mentioned by Banquo, who would later be murdered by Macbeth, a dark fate is foreshadowed for valiant Macbeth. Not long after the prophecies are told, Macbeth kills King Duncan to ulfill the future he was promised. As a result of his ambitions, nature itself is thrown into chaos, reflecting the current human disorder. A falcon tow’ring in her pride of place, was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d. (2. 4 103) Following the King’s murder, the social climate for the characters has been greatly changed.
To further illustrate unnatural change, the environment begins to revolt against itself. The greater falcon was killed by the lesser mousing owl, while the greater King Duncan was killed by the lesser General Macbeth. During this time of discord, the political tmosphere had also shifted. Malcolm was made to be heir to the throne as he was Duncan’s son, but following Duncan’s murder and Malcolm fleeing, the royal order was disrupted. Macbeth’s ascension to the throne interrupted the rightful inheritance through blood.
Gainst nature still: thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up thine own life’s means! Then ’tis most like the sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth. (2. 4 105) Here, Ross believes that what has happened to Duncan goes against nature. However it was believed that Malcolm was the one who had killed his father out of his own ambition. Regardless of this dramatic irony, the act and its consequences on their own based on ambition are seen as a direct movement against nature. Further action against nature and the consequences also follow this dramatic irony. The irony is that Macbeth, in pursuing that goal so desperately, in a selfishly mechanical rather than co-operatively humane way, destroys his own chances for a place in the human future” (Cambridge 1).
Once natural order has been disrupted, it soon becomes difficult to remain in control of the path followed. From disorder and chaos comes clouded judgement. A few poor decisions or an inability to think sends one on a downward spiral, from which there is no escape. Following his ordered killing of Banquo, newly crowned King Macbeth is plagued with apparitions of Banquo and he is unable to think clearly through the fear.
You make me strange even to the disposition that I owe, when now I think you can behold such sights, and keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, when mine is blanch’d with fear. (3. 4 147) Macbeth’s guilt and paranoia are beginning to seep through his mask. He is unable to remain composed and it is coming a cost; e is betraying himself and Lady Macbeth. After so much of what he has done, Macbeth believes he know what he must do next. I am in blood stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er. (3. 149) Macbeth now believes that he cannot redeem himself for what he has done, and that if he were to fix what he has done, the consequences would be even more severe. He must continue down his chosen path or be devoured by the past. This also mirrors Lady Macbeth’s ‘what is done cannot be undone’.
In his last living moments, Macbeth reflects on his life, and realizes hat it has become so soaked in horrors that he is completely desensitized to any gory business. I have supp’d full of horrors: direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, cannot once start me. (5. 13-15) Upon hearing the screams of his wife’s death, Macbeth feels no horror. He knows, with the English army advancing, that he will die an unaffected and numb man. Reaching the point of no escape seals the fate of those who have travelled to it, and soon enough, everyone will begin to suffer for it. The suffering of the people of Scotland at the hands of Macbeth begins shortly after he is no longer able to contain hat he has done to get to this point. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are haunted by what they have done, to the point that they plot to cause others to suffer with them.
The castle of Macduff I will surprise; seize upon Fife; give to the edge the sword/ His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool; this deed l’ll do before this purpose cool. (4. 1 158-170) Macbeth learns that Macduff has fled to England to join Malcolm and vows not to kill him, but to kill his family. Macbeth is at the end of his ambition – he now formulates his plans based n his own need for personal protection. He is no longer concerned for those around him.
The Cambridge companion explains this phenomenon as being a complete lack of common logic. In the case of Macbeth, the implicit answer lies in an innate craving for dominion and progeny that the ambitious man himself cannot fully understand, that drive him even against his own better reason” (Cambridge 1). Following her husband, Lady Macbeth is in delusions so deep that she cannot emerge from them. To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate; come, come, come, come, give me your hand: what’s done cannot be undone; o bed, to bed, to bed. (5. 1) Her mind is stuck in the past and replaying what she and Macbeth have done.
She is a broken record, on the verge of shattering completely. Outside the castle, Malcolm and Macduff recognize the pain of the citizens of Scotland. They know that the only way to end it is by cutting off the head of the snake that is Macbeth. Bleed, bleed poor country: great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, for goodness dares not check thee. (4. 3 36-42) Macduff had fled to England to join malcolm against Macbeth. To him, Scotland is bleeding, wounded by tyranny. He will not be he villain, as he further explains, but he will be the saviour.
He makes this statement a reality by killing Macbeth. The bleeding of Scotland has stopped. Ambition is proven in Macbeth to be unable to exist without mortal or supernatural consequence when unnatural advancement is punished. The hierarchy of humanity is interrupted, Macbeth loses sight of what it was that he truly wanted and as a result, both he and his wife as well as the whole of Scotland suffer. The ambitious among humanity are both blessed and cursed. They are the ones who keep the world moving, but they are the first to fall should they fail.
