Shakespeare's Macbeth shows similarities to Richard III of England in his ambition and Machiavellians deeds, but their nature sets them apart. In the end, they are seen as similar tyrants in the way their countries reacted to their kingships. Despite the similarities, they both have had a very different path that led to their Ambition. Because of their natures, one was a victim of fate, the other was a victim of his own pessimism. These Machiavellian characters take different paths to a parallel end.
These two men have identical paths to the same tragic demise. As scholar leading British essayists of the early nineteenth century says, "These two characters in common hands, and indeed in the hands of any other poet, would have been a reputation of the same general idea. For both are tyrants, usurpers, murderers, both aspiring and ambitious, both courageous, cruel, treacherous. (29)" Macbeth, upon learning of the witches foretelling of the future, plans the murder of Duncan to take over the Throne. When the witches hail him as the King of Scotland, his ambition takes over and he drowns in a pool of blood that was created through murder that didn’t seem to stop. After killing Duncan and usurping the kingship, he killed whoever stood in the way of keeping it. The nation of Scotland was in fear of him and the once peaceful land was now in turmoil. An army was raised against him and his own ambition caused a rebellion that would turn into his ultimate downfall.
Jealous of his brother's power, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, starts to secretly aspire the throne and plots to guilt trip his brother, King Edward, to death and lock up Edward's two sons. The same pool of blood consumes Richard, for the murders were endless. He did whatever ...
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...urdering his brothers and kidnapping his nephews, he fully knew of the consequence and had no remorse.
Ambition makes or breaks a man. In the case of Macbeth and Richard III, it broke them quicker than anything ever could. They turned into reckless tyrants. One had a promising future, the other was doomed to a villainous life from the beginning. One turned into a monster, the other was one was one all along. If you are ambitious enough, opportunity will knock, but you may not always want to answer.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. "William Hazlitt on Macbeth and Richard III." William Shakespeare's Macbeth. New York: Chelsea House, 1996. 27-31. Print.
Lukeman, Noah, and William Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Macbeth. New York: Pegasus, 2008. Print.
Shakespeare, William, and Peter Holland. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. New York, NY: Penguin, 2000. Print.
Before reading Peter S. Donaldson’s article, "Cinema and the Kingdom of Death: Loncraine’s Richard III," I slept eight hours, ate a well-balanced breakfast, and ran a mile to warm up. I knew from reading "In Fair Verona," that Donaldson writes for fit athletes of an intense analytical and intellectual field. Focus, pacing, and especially composure are essential to navigating his intricate and challenging course of connections, allusions, Shakespeare, media, history, past, present, future and beyond. I was prepared, though, and began slowly, but confidently, on another one of Donaldson’s awesome paths. And this time, I just may have created some of my own.
Macbeth, a play written by William Shakespeare, portrays Macbeth as a kinsman, subject and trusted friend to King Duncan I of Scotland. A trusted friend, that is, until Macbeth has a chance encounter with the “three witches” (Shakespeare) or the “Weird Sisters”. The witches predict that Macbeth will become the next King and that his fellow companion, Banquo, will be the father of a line of kings. A change comes over Macbeth after his meeting; he is no longer content to be a follower of the King, he will “be” King at any cost. After killing the King and his friend Banquo, losing his wife to madness and ordering the execution of many, Macbeth is killed in much the same fashion as he has killed. But does this really reflect the real King MacBeth of Scotland? While examining the characteristics and actions of the two Macbeths and decide if Shakespeare’s writing was historically sound or was it just “double, double, toil and trouble” (4.1.22-26) playing with MacBeth’s character.
Lady Macbeth is at the same time greater and lesser than her husband. She has a hardness which he lacks, but she has none of his subtlety and perception. She knows her husband well and despises him a little, but to satisfy her ambition, which is a crude desire to see her man King, she will devote herself soul and body to evil. (62)
In the early 1600’s, William Shakespeare penned an Aristotelian tragedy ‘Macbeth’ which provides his audiences both then and now with many valuable insights and perceptions into human nature. Shakespeare achieves this by cleverly employing many dramatic devices and themes within the character of ‘Macbeth’. Macbeth is depicted as an anti-hero; a noble protagonist with a tragic flaw that leads to his downfall. This tragic flaw of Macbeth’s, heavily laden with the themes of ‘fate or free will’, and ‘ambition’, is brought out by Shakespeare in his writing to present us with a character whose actions and final demise are, if not laudable, very recognisable as human failings.
William Shakespeare had tragedy in Macbeth. Macbeth had been a Thane, which is a noble. Lady Macbeth wants to be Queen of Scotland in Macbeth wants to be king no matter what it takes Macbeth was going be king and Lady Macbeth was going to be queen. Lady Macbeth was a very strong mind person. Lady Macbeth suffered from the effect of bipolar and schizophrenia.
... bloody pathway to kingship. Filled with scorn against a society that rejects him and nature that curses him with a weakened body, Richard decides to take revenge and ultimately declares a war between himself and the world. By achieving goals for the mere sake of self-advancement, a self-made hero, an ambitious king, and an atrocious villain were created. Richard assumes that love forms a bond which men can break, but fear is supported by the dread of ever-present pain (Machiavelli ch. XXIV); thus, for true success the hero must be a villain too. Richard III becomes one of literature’s most recognized anti-heroes under the hands of Shakespeare as he has no objective or thought to take up any other profession than the art of hatred; however, ironically being a representative of a heroic ruler sent by God, he is made to commit murder to redeem society of their sins.
Shakespeare constructs King Richard III to perform his contextual agenda, or to perpetrate political propaganda in the light of a historical power struggle, mirroring the political concerns of his era through his adaptation and selection of source material. Shakespeare’s influences include Thomas More’s The History of King Richard the Third, both constructing a certain historical perspective of the play. The negative perspective of Richard III’s character is a perpetuation of established Tudor history, where Vergil constructed a history intermixed with Tudor history, and More’s connection to John Morton affected the villainous image of the tyrannous king. This negative image is accentuated through the antithesis of Richards treachery in juxtaposition of Richmond’s devotion, exemplified in the parallelism of ‘God and Saint George! Richmond and victory.’ The need to legitimize Elizabeth’s reign influenced Shakespeare’s portra...
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth tells the story of a general who commits regicide in order to become king. Early in the play, Macbeth is conflicted as to weather or not he wants to kill his kinsman the king. In the first two acts Macbeth is not portrayed as a ruthless killer; he is a sympathetic character who succumbs to the provocation of his wife and a prophecy foretold by three mysterious witches. In contrast, Lady Macbeth is a manipulative, immoral woman. Her ambition is so strong that she is willing to do anything to see her husband succeed. However, in the third act things begin to change. The death of the king and lord and lady Macbeth’s rise to power catalyze profound transformation in their personalities.
Shakespeare, William. Richard III. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997), 515-600.
Macbeth written by Shakespeare, is a tragic and historical thriller play filled with action-packed murders and the fall of man. The characters are portrayed to have personal ambitions. Shakespeare displayed these ambitions to both be destructive and constructive. Which unchecked ambition has detrimental impacts as shown in the main characters and checked, cautious ambition can help influence and encourage others. Ambition is an overarching theme found common in the play and could also be shown for the sake of justice and a positive characteristic. These ambitions were either presented as fatal flaws shown
Both these forces were main reasons behind Macbeth’s demise, but his own vaulting ambition was brought upon his downfall. Through a series of techniques such as foreshadowing, metaphors and contrasting, Shakespeare conveys to the audience how a tragic hero can be brought down by his own
William Shakespeare's tragic play 'Macbeth' contains images of suffering and details the consequences of one's action. The story, set within medieval Scotland, follows the actions of a man destined for greatness. Macbeth is known to be noble, yet he falters and ultimately falls prey to his conscience. As a result, Macbeth is the tragic hero of this play because he makes a fatal mistake, he endures great suffering, and he possesses a destructive hamartia.
Macbeth’s ambition to obtain power convinces him that it is his destiny to become King of Scotland, and that he should do anything to fulfill that destiny, even if it involves him committing tremendously immoral acts such as murder. After Macbeth realizes that the witches may actually speak the truth due to the second prophecy (Thane of Cawdor) becoming true, he begins to have an eerie and frightening thought of him killing his king and friend, Duncan, in order to ac...
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” explores a fundamental struggle of the human conscience. The reader is transported into the journey of a man who recognizes and acknowledges evil but still succumbs to its destructive powers. The character of Macbeth is shrouded in ambiguity that scholars have claimed as both being a tyrant and tragic hero. Macbeth’s inner turmoil and anxieties that burden him throughout the entire play evoke sympathy and pity in the reader. Though he has the characteristics of an irredeemable tyrant, Macbeth realizes his mistakes and knows there is no redemption for his sins. And that is indeed tragic.
Shakespeare, William. “Macbeth.” The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Longman, 1997