Macbeth Ambition Quotes

Act 1 Scene 3: After hearing the witches predict that Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland, Banquo notes that his friend is "rapt withal," suggesting that Macbeth is consumed or entranced by the prophecy. Banquo is eager to hear what the witches have in store for him and we can see that Banquo is ambitious he's pleased as punch when he learns his heirs will be kings (even though he will never wear the crown). Yet, Banquo never takes drastic measures to gain power for himself or his heirs, which makes him a foil to Macbeth who, eventually, will stop at nothing to secure his power. After the weird sisters predict that Macbeth will be king, his thoughts turn to "murder," which the sisters have said nothingabout. Could it be that the witches' prophesy awakens within Macbeth a murderous ambition that was there all along? Act 1 Scene 5: After reading the letter from her husband (which recounts the witches' prophesy), Lady Macbeth's thoughts immediately turn to murder. In her mind, Macbeth must take action if he is to become king. Macbeth, she says, is certainly not without "ambition." The problem, as Lady Macbeth sees it, is that her husband is too "kind" to do what's necessary to achieve "great[ness]." Act 1 Scene 7: As Macbeth deliberates, he realizes that "vaulting ambition" is all that compels him to the heinous act of murdering Duncan and that his intent is nothing but personal gain. This is not enough to justify the act of killing a king, which is why he resolves to not go through with it after this speech. Of course, we know that Macbeth (with some encouragement from his wife) does murder Duncan.

Macbeth Gender Quotes

Act 1 Scene 3: Banquo's confusion about the witches' gender is pretty striking and speaks to the play's notion that the witches are "too masculine" to be women. (In 17th century England, the ideal woman was silent, obedient, chaste, beautiful, and submissive, etc. and the weird sisters are none of these things.) Like Lady Macbeth, who taunts her husband into killing Duncan by questioning his manhood, the witches are menacing figures that trigger Macbeth's murderous ambition, which brings about his ruin. Remember, it's their prophecy that leads Macbeth to first consider killing Duncan in order to secure his, Macbeth's, power. (On the other hand, we might also remember that the play goes out of its way to show that Macbeth makes his own decisions. The witches never say anything about murder they just tell Macbeth he's going to become king.) Here, the First Witch describes how she's going to punish a sailor's wife (who refused to share some of her chestnuts) by whipping up a nasty little storm so the sailor's ship, currently at sea, will be "tempest-tost." What's more, she says she's going to "drain [the sailor] dry as hay," which means that she's going to make the sailor impotent (so he can't have children). Fear of male impotency is something that surfaces in the play over and over again. (Even the Porter jokes about it in Act II, scene iii.) Most notably, Lady Macbeth, who is often aligned with the witches, implies that her husband is unable to perform sexually (see 1.7.3 below) when he refuses to kill Duncan. Act 1 Scene 5: According to Lady Macbeth, her husband is ambitious, but he is also too "kind" to do what it takes to murder Duncan so that he, Macbeth, can be king. What's a wife to do? Lady Macbeth plans to "chastise" Macbeth with the "valour of [her] tongue," which is another way of saying she's going to browbeat her husband into taking action so he can be "crown'd withal." This speech establishes Lady Macbeth as the dominant partner in the relationship, which inverts typical 17th century gender and social roles. (Husbands were supposed to "rule" their wives in the same way that kings ruled countries.) In the previous passage we saw that Lady Macbeth thinks her husband doesn't have it in him to do what it takes to become king (murder Duncan). Here, she psyches herself up to help Macbeth by calling on "spirits" to "unsex" her to stop her menstrual flow ("make thick [her] blood" and "stop the visitings of nature") and to change her breast "milk" for poison or, "gall" all things that make her a reproductive woman with the capacity for

nurture. So, why would Lady Macbeth want to be rendered sterile? This passage suggests that, for Lady Macbeth, being a reproductive woman could prevent her from committing a violent deed. It seems that Lady Macbeth construes femininity as compassion and "kindness" and also believes that masculinity is synonymous with "direst cruelty." So, when Lady Macbeth says earlier (1.5.1 above) that Macbeth is "too full o' the milk of human kindness," she's essentially saying that Macbeth is too much like a woman (1.5.1). Act 1 Scene 7: True to her word, Lady Macbeth gives her husband a tongue lashing when he hesitates about killing King Duncan. She calls him a "coward" and says "When you durst do it, then you were a man." Pretty emasculating, wouldn't you say? We're also interested in the way Lady Macbeth implies that "doing" the deed (killing Duncan) is like "doing" what a man does in the bedroom. She asks "Art thou afeard / To be the same in thine own act and valour / As thou art in desire"? Translation: Are you afraid you'll be as impotent in the act of killing the king as you are during sex ("desire")? Macbeth insists that he can "do all that may become a man," he attempts to reassert his manhood in the face of Lady Macbeth's belittling comments. Lady Macbeth sure knows how to conjure up some violent imagery, doesn't she? After she browbeats her husband into saying that he'll go ahead with the murder of the king, she goes on (famously) to insist that, if she had promised to do so, she'd tear her nursing child from her breast and "dash" its "brains out." Yikes! We can link this passage back to Lady Macbeth's earlier remarks about "the milk of human kindness" being synonymous with femininity and "direst cruelty" being associated with masculinity (see above passages). Macbeth acknowledges his wife's strength and power by suggesting that it would be fitting if she gave birth to "men-children only." Her "undaunted mettle" suggests that she has all the makings of a strong and brave man. Of course, Lady Macbeth won't be giving birth to any children after this, which is one of the play's most important points from this point on, Macbeth's marriage is sterile. Unlike Banquo (who will beget kings), Macbeth will never sire heirs that will be monarchs and this is deeply upsetting to him. Later, Macbeth laments that when the witches made their prophecy, they "placed a fruitless crown" upon his head and put a "barren scepter" in his hands (3.1.8)

Act 5 Scene 1: By the play's final act, Lady Macbeth has been reduced to an enfeebled woman who sleepwalks through the castle and mutters to herself as she attempts to wash the imaginary blood from her hands (5.1.6). We're struck by the way traditional gender roles are reestablished at the end of the play (unlike the beginning of the drama, where Lady Macbeth is a domineering figure who helps drive her husband to murder and kingship). By Act iii, scene iv, Lady Macbeth doesn't even appear on stage with her husband (off stage, she's surrounded by a group of gentlewomen who tend to her in her illness) and Macbeth says he has no time to think about his wife when he learns of her death (5.5.3). Lady Macbeth, who was once so central to the action of the play, is a pretty marginal character when all is said and done.