greed

There will always be one prevailing evil, which is the cause of every evil that gradually follows. However, it is always good people that are seduced to act immorally, often driven by one supreme evil: selfish desires. Ambition is good, but it is what one ends up doing with that ambition that eventually seals their fate. In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the recurring motif of blood and violence in order to further his theme that overreaching ambition leads to permanent consequences. Guilt was a significant consequence for the selfish killing of King Duncan, and Shakespeare shows how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were affected by guilt through the motif of blood.

Macbeth succumbs to evil through his own imperfection, greed, which in turn causes him to upset the predetermined chain of being. “Shakespeare shows, with Macbeth as an example, that any man can turn evil due to the temptations led on by many things. His temptations of evil are led on by the witches prophecies, and by being manipulated by what others say” (Rosner). When Macbeth willingly murders, lies and deceives for his own personal betterment, he loses his self and his sanity. The parasitic nature of evil cause it to influence all objects that lay in its’ path, and Macbeth agrees to become evil's disciple.

This advice causes him to become scared and makes him feel as if he needs to kill more people to protect himself. This false sense of fate and power on his part is a major factor in his downfall. So, the witches influence Macbeth by causing his ascension, his madness, and his demise. They cannot thus compel his will to evil; but they do arouse his passions and stir up a vehement and inordinate apprehension of the imagination, which so perverts the judgment of reason that it leads his will toward choosing means to the desired temporal good.)

They try as hard as they can and at the end of the day all they get is a distorted and destroyed reflection of who they once were. The ambition for power will ruin a soul. This idea is expressed in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Julius Caesar. These plays feature characters that are driven to evil by the desire to achieve power. Shakespeare shows the reader that the ambition for power can turn an individual into a ruthless and unsympathetic savage through the characters of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Brutus and Cassius.

In his short story, The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allen Poe produces a macabre tale about pride, revenge, and deception. The haunting tale is narrated by the vengeful Montresor who seeks to redress the wrong doing of his peer, Fortunato. He allows his pride to overtake his humanity and consequently lures Fortunato to his murderous death. His plan, “I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes it redresser.

Power is a very dangerous obsession because it corrupts many individuals. The idea of power corrupting individuals has been present since the time of Hitler, and Napoleon but it has gotten worst in the present time because of the advance technology and individuals ambition for money. A perfect example of an individual that is corrupted by power is Muammar Gaddafi. Muammar Gaddafi, tyrant of Libya, shocked the world by his use of power. Another great example of how power corrupts an individual is shown in the play, Macbeth written by William Shakespeare.

This conflict with his wife is a direct result of his greediness, and his unrelenting greed leads to his son’s death. John Steinbeck is able to convey the theme that insatiable greed is the precursor to agonizing misery, through the use of various elements of fiction that include characterization, symbolism and conflict. Through these elements of fiction, Steinbeck creates a dark, tragic story that warns of the consequences of greed in a world where everyone is looking out for themselves and their capacity for evil and greed is far outweighs their capacity for benevolence.

Her influence over her husband reveals his weaknesses and the weaknesses of men. Iago on the other hand is consumed with envy and seeks revenge over Othello. His consistent deceit and ease of manipulation allows us to see his amoral nature. Shakespeare allows the audience a connection to Iago, one finds themselves intrigued by his evil actions. Pointing to the evil we all have within us Shakespeare allows his audience to live through Iago.

Iago also displayed how easily envy can take a hold of person, and drive them to do to extreme things. Just the slightest doubt created immense envy in Iago, and he wants to make Othello suffer by experiencing the same emotion. Iago knows that in order for his plan to work he must plant... ... middle of paper ... ...ot even great valiant men such as Othello are free from the hands of envy and jealousy. From here on Iago uses jealously and envy as his tools of destruction, and jealously from this point on drives the play forward. Throughout the play the characters of Othello struggle with the power of envy.

This illustrates the consequences of Macbeth's the pursuit of his ambition has done to him, infecting him by turning him into a monster that keeps on going, with no where to stop. Macbeth's ambition also makes him deceive people like the murderers into killing his once noble friend Banquo, as he persuades them by crying out "know that it was [Banqo] in the past which held you so under fortune" (111.1.75-77.41). From this, it is evident that there is a shift in Macbeth's social sphere as he is now stooped so low that he is indulging in corrupted murders to do his bidding. This highlights the effect his virus has in making his deceitful and form new lows by being the slave to his sickness from within, allowing it to infect him. Macbeth has exorbitantly descended the moral ladder by betraying his once close friend Banquo and the divine king, and with that himself.