Macbeth - Ambition

Question 1

‘too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness’

Answer 1

Lady Macbeth, Act 1:
* first intro to LM, her defining trait is ambition
* LM is the ulitmate catalyst to plot
* LM thinks only way to achieve greatness is to ignore moral compass - thinks mac cannae do this
‘the illness to attend’
* illness = evil
* need to do evil to follow and realise ambitions

Question 2

‘I have no spur… but only vaulting ambition… falls on the other’

Answer 2

Macbeth, Act 1:
* metaphor that ambition is the spur, and the horse is the action
* or spur = motivation
* ability was overestimated, fell down while trying to clear obstacle
* foreshadows macbeth’s end
* ‘vaulting’ = magnitude of macbeth’s ambition, erratic

Question 3

‘Stars hide your fires, let light not see my black and deep desires’

Answer 3

Macbeth, Act 1:
* desires = ambition
* ‘deep’ = embedded into him, becommping part of him
* alliteration of ‘deep desires’
* macbeth is aware of situation and hamartia
* ‘light’ = God, shows ambition as sin in jacobean era, could break great chain of being = unnatural events + damnation for the person who breaks it

Question 4

‘gainst nature still!’

Answer 4

Ross, Act 2:
* duncans kids r going against nature by killing their dad for ambition
* dramatic irony
* macbeth is going against nature by killing duncan - someone he respects
* ambition = unnatural phenomenon

Question 5

‘a dagger of the mind, a false creation’

Answer 5

Macbeth, Act 2:
* hamartia = insatiable ambition
* leads to madness due to giving up everything he knew
* also bc of murders
* effects lm as well
* ‘dagger’ = madness, consequences of ambition, ambition is something to harm others
* ‘false creation’ = not created by God, therfore impure