ambition Flashcards
Macbeth - Act 1, Scene 4
“The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step / On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, / For in my way it lies.”
To become king, Macbeth must get around Malcolm. This means that he might have to murder him. If Macbeth does not get around Malcolm, he will fall to his demise.
Macbeth - Act 1, Scene 4
“Stars, hide your fires.”
o At this point, Macbeth hasn’t even spoken to Lady Macbeth about his plans and yet he’s already trying to mask his bloodlust. This is one of the lines that displays how quickly Macbeth jumps to murdering the king and is not influenced as much by Lady Macbeth as we are made to believe. Many claim that Lady Macbeth is the one to push Macbeth over the edge to killing the king, but this simple line is proof enough that his intentions were clear from the very beginning. This demonstrates the speed at which Macbeth is corrupted by the promise of power and leaves his honourable ascent into power to instead take it by treason and murder.
Macbeth - Act 1, Scene 4
“Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
o Throughout the play, dark and light are juxtaposed. Darkness is associated with evil, violence and moral corruption, with the witches, the ‘dark arts’, with the devil.
o Macbeth here inhabits the darkness. Light is associated with morality, reason, purity, and with truth. The stars are also a metonym for God, and for Fate. In Julius Caesar, Cassius tells Brutus that “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” The notion of fate is challenged in Macbeth with the question of human agency and moral responsibility.
o Macbeth likes to have a bet each way. Here he instructs the stars to “hide [their] fires”, suggesting that he is taking his fate into his own hands, and is about to pursue a course of action which goes against the path that “fate” may dictate. It is this moral ambivalence that makes Macbeth such a complex and interesting character.
Lady Macbeth - Act 1, Scene 5
“-yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness.”
Lady Macbeth fears her husband’s compassionate nature may blunt his ambition and keep him from doing what is necessary to achieve greatness.
Notice how she uses “milk” here as a metaphor for the (stereotypically) feminine quality of nurturing kindness–the ironic implication being that she is far less full of that milk than he is.
Lady Macbeth - Act 1, Scene 5
“-thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it.”
She fears that he hasn’t the killer instinct that will allow him to achieve greatness). This is a precursor to her telling him to be the serpent under the flower.
Lady Macbeth - Act 1, Scene 5
“…Unsex me here And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;”
Lady Macbeth is mentally preparing for the killing of King Duncan. She doesn’t want to be gentle, soft, sweet-tempered–qualities stereotypically associated with her sex (all the more so in the Jacobean period). She wants to lose such qualities in favor of bloodlust and warrior-like toughness. “Make thick my blood” means she wants to be cold-hearted, wants her wounds to heal over quickly before she feels any pain.
- Before corruption, Macbeth takes on an effeminate role. Before growing more masculine. The women are in control as they use supernatural means to get ahead.
- Milk is a recurring metaphor for kindness and nurturing – Something Lady Macbeth purposefully removes to gain more power.
Macbeth - Act 1, Scene 7
“I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on the other.”
This shows how Macbeth recognises he is dangerously ambitious and alludes to a man jumping onto a horse and missing all together. Because of this, the commitment of the deed is all the more ironic.
He is also presented as Machiavellin because he admits that the only reason for committing the murder is ‘ambition’
Macbeth - Act 3, Scene 1
“To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.”
o Macbeth speaks this line after he has become king but continues to feel restless and insecure. He is afraid that he might lose his position and is also frustrated by the fact that he has no heir. Without the knowledge that his lineage will continue after him, Macbeth finds it meaningless to be king. This quote reveals how him giving in to his ambition and murdering Duncan has not brought him peace, but rather has just left him more paranoid and anxious. The line also reveals how Macbeth’s first violent action sets off a chain reaction of him continuing to commit violent actions to maintain his hold on the power he has gained.
