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Ambition and Greed in Macbeth


            Ambition and greed are portrayed effectively in William Shakespeare's play, "Macbeth." First of all, what do these words mean? Ambition is the amount of determination and/or desire an individual has to accomplish their goal, and it basically predetermines whether he/she will reach it or not. Ambition displays how much the person really wants whatever they are trying to succeed. Ambition is usually positive, but an overflowing amount of it can turn into a bad thing. You could forget the rest of the world and even turn into greed. Greed is very selfish. The benefits of the goal could only be affecting you, but it can be negatively affecting all the people around you. As long as you get what you want, it does not matter how it affects with everybody else. As you can see, there is a difference between greed and ambition. Ambition may barely even affect anyone else. Greed cannot only affect others negatively, but it could bite you in the butt and affect you negatively. In "Macbeth", the lead character, Macbeth, really does not know if he is going to get what he want with ambition, therefore he uses greed unknowing whether he is going to attain it with or without any consequences.
             "My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not" – Macbeth (Macbeth,1.3.9). Macbeth is very ambitious to become king. But as the story starts to establish, he starts to think about murder, and the ambition and all the desire began to escalate to greed. "[Aside] The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see," said Macbeth (Macbeth, 1.4.4). Macbeth's desire began to turn into greed, but he isn't all greed.


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