Consequences of Ambition Exposed in Macbeth, The Maid's Tragedy, and The Duchess of Malfi
Twenty-first century America praises the ambitious. The American dream urges us to set lofty goals and then rely on the Protestant work ethic to achieve them-regardless of potential obstacles. Parents encourage their children to consider any and every career choice. Companies and schools stress goal-setting and celebrate productivity. Even a contemporary catchphrase like "The sky's the limit" or the Army slogan "Be all you can be"-the stuff of graduation cards and commencement addresses-promote ambition. Yet ambition has not always been valued. Seventeenth-century Jacobean drama often casts it in a negative light. Unbridled ambition yields deadly outcomes, the literature suggests. Macbeth, The Maid's Tragedy, and The Duchess of Malfi each illustrate the severe consequences of boundless ambition. John Milton takes the idea a step further in Paradise Lost, depicting the most ambitious of characters as well as the proper way to handle ambition, according to God's will.
In Macbeth, ambition first arises in Lady Macbeth, distorting her values. Immediately, she recognizes her husband's chance to rise in power. She craves it so intensely that she willingly invites "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts" to fill her "from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty" (I.v.40-41)! Lady Macbeth instinctively associates ambition with cruelty. She considers cruelty necessary in her rise to power. She also fears that her husband is "too full o' the milk of human kindness" to execute her plan (I.v.17). Ambition and kindness are mutually exclusive, she insinuates. Therefore, she views the virtue as a wea...
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In this paper I will be telling you many different forms of domestic violence. I will include the physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, spiritual abuse, economic abuse, social abuse, and emotional abuse. I will also describe the "cycle of violence", teen dating violence, and why women stay with an abusive partner.
Brutus would make a good leader is that he does not want to be a king or have absolute
Retribution and revenge, as tropes and themes, were Elizabethan favorites, as can be seen in many of the plays and books written during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Retribution, including crusaders, an eye for an eye, is defined for the purposes of the essay as a j...
Shakespeare, William. Tragedy of Macbeth . Ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Warstine. New York: Washington Press, 1992.
Solzhenitsyn believed that it was nearly impossible to have truly free thoughts under the prison camp conditions described in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, or in any situation where there is an authoritarian ruler. In a pris...
Domestic Violence is a widely recognized issue here in the United States. Though many people are familiar with domestic violence, there are still many facts that people do not understand. Abuse is not just physical, it is mental, emotional, verbal, sexual and financial. Many victims of physical abuse are also fall victim to these abuse tactics as well. An abusive partner often uses verbal, mental, emotional, and financial abuse to break their partner so to speak. It is through this type of abuse the victim often feels as though they are not adequately meeting their partner’s needs.
Domestic violence covers a large array of abuses. Some of the different types of abuse include Physical, Emotional, Verbal, Sexual and Economical. Women suffering abuse usually suffer from all the different types. Often one type of abuse will bleed or lead to another and most abuse cases never start out with something physical. Most of the time one form of abuse is being used to enforce another.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.” The main character of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth, is filled with ambition. Macbeth is a Shakespearean play in which Macbeth is given a prophecy by three witches which tells that he will eventually become king of Scotland. Macbeth, filled with ambition to fulfill these predictions, let’s nothing get in his way. The principles within Macbeth direct him and his ambition to perform very bad acts. Between Macbeth and his wife, the theme of ambition without morales leads to absolute destruction is abundantly present, especially as the play progresses.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE: Causing fear by intimidation, threatening physical harm to self, partner or children, destruction of pets and property, mind games or forcing isolation from friends, family, school and/or work. (Source from womenslaw.org)
In Macbeth ambition plays a huge role in character devolvement. Ambition affects four of the major characters. The characters are Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Malcom, and Banquo. The sisters are the source of Ambition. It is as if they control ambition. The ambition the sisters’ control is negative ambition. Ambition is, wanting to have more then you have and wanting it now.
Abuse may not outwardly begin as a physical action against the victim. “Approximately two-thirds of Americans say it is hard to determine whether someone has been a victim of domestic abuse” (Break The Cycle). The abuser typically starts by attacking the victim mentally and emotionally. Beginning signs that one could be in an abusive relationship is if the suspected abuser shows signs of possessiveness, extreme jealousy, or insecurity over the relationship. More expressive signs of violent behavior would be an explosive temper, unpredictable mood swings, or constantly putting down his/her partner (Break The Cycle). By expressing these characteristics, an abuser will begin to isolate the victim from his/her family and friends. Once he or she has managed to create an attachment between the victim and themselves, the physical violence might begin to take place. After an attack, oftentimes the abuser will excessively apologize to the victim in an attempt to earn back their trust. Victims are often embarrasse...
Mental or psychological abuse has the most expansive list of methods. Mental abuse is harming a woman emotionally or psychologically and has an endless list of effects. This type of abuse may take form verbally by being humiliated, destructively criticized, removing self-confidence, yelling, threatening, accusing, or even remaining silent, overly authoritative, or disrespectful. A man may emotionally abuse his partner by destroying something important or sentimental to her or threaten to take away th...
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In the play, Hamlet, William Shakespeare explores the theme of revenge. Throughout the work, Hamlet acquires a moral dilemma; he cannot decide how to carry out revenge without condemning himself. Thus, although the play promotes the idea of revenge at the beginning, the cultivation of dialogue, relationships, and complications provide evidence of the detrimental consequences and limitations of the theme.
Shakespeare, William. Tragedy of Macbeth . Ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Warstine. New York: Washington Press, 1992.