KT - ambition Flashcards
What kind of theme is ambition in Macbeth?
a fundamental theme
What is ambition to Macbeth?
his driving force
what does this theme tell the audience?
That the play is a tragedy, informs the Shakespearean idea of tragedy
When does macbeth acknowledge his ambition?
before the murder of duncan
what does ambition do to macbeth?
overrules his troubled conscience
how does ambition help the witches and lady macbeth
- he is influenced by them
- they only have power because the ambition is there
how is the theme of ambition presented to us the first time we meet macbeth?
- witches prophecy
- fears them even though he thinks they are ‘so fair’ (good things)
- ambition already caused him to entertain treasonous thoughts
how is macbeth affected by his ambition?
-fatally undermined by it
-consequences are the fabric of the play
what does the quote ‘to be king stands not within the prospect of belief, no more than to be cawdor’ tell us?
-act 1, scene 3
-thinking rationally at start (can’t be king, impossible)
-the idea of being thane of cawdor and king are linked in macbeth’s mind (if he gets to be cawdor, he will be king)
-ambition is possible
what does the quote ‘my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical’ tell us?
-act 1, scene 3
-knows he has to commit murder to become king
-entertaining his treasonous thoughts
what does the quote ‘if chance will have me king, why chance may crown me without my stir’
-act 1, scene 3
-moral side of macbeth
- doesn’t want to murder anyone but also wants the crown
- moral dilemma
what does the quote ‘that is a step on which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, for in my way it lies’ tell us?
-scene 1, act 4
-physical obstacles to macbeth’s ambition (getting the crown)
-duncan and malcolm
why does shakespeare repeat the word ‘o’erleap’ or ‘jump’?
-‘that is a step on which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, for in my way it lies’ (1,4)
-‘we’d jump the life to come’ (1,7)
-‘vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself’ (1,7)
-may fail/fall
-constant reminder of the chance of failure
-reminds audience that it is a shakespearean tragedy
-foresahdows end
what does the quote ‘that but this blow may be the be-all and the end-all’ tell us?
-act 1, scene 7
-macbeth wants the laws of cause and effect to stop working
-he doesn’t want any consequences to his actions
-wants to ‘o’erleap’ the consequences
what does the quote ‘i have no spur to prick the sides of my intent but only vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself. And falls on the other’ tell us?
-horse that needs spurs (to control a horse) is a metaphor for macbeth’s ambition to kill duncan
-macbeth only has a vaulting horse that he can’t control
metaphor for his ambition
-his chance of failing is high because his ambition is reckless and uncontrollable
