Ambition – The Main Tragic Flaw of Macbeth

Introduction: In Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the three evil witches provide Macbeth with a prediction, saying that he will be thane of Cawdor and then King of Scotland. After the prediction by the witches, a seed is planted in Macbeth’s mind to be the King, Macbeth is a man with ambition, so much ambition, which in the end leads to his tragic downfall. Background: First, he was a noble scottish lord, and a person who was loved by everyone. But his greed for power eventually drags him down. His judgment changes as he tries to get to his ambitions; he can only see ideas that will help him get what he wants. Which eventually leads to his own downfall.

Topic sentence: Let lady Macbeth manipulate him, Macbeth decides that he no longer wants to kill king Duncan but Lady Macbeth questions his manhood and calls him a coward: “When you durst do it,” she says, “then you were a man”. Evidence & citing: This words that lady macbeth said hurts Macbeth so much that he agrees on killing King Duncan. Commentary: The statement above proves that Macbeth let’s lady macbeth manipulate him. He is a grown up man, he could have proved himself a man in many other ways. But he choose to kill King Duncan, Which is his own fault.

Topic sentence: Takes witches prediction too seriously. Although the witches predict that Macbeth will be king but they never say to Kill king and take his place. It’s Macbeth who thinks about murder on his side. Evidence & citing: As it says in the text “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical”. The witches’ words are only tempting Macbeth, it was once macbeth who slowly develops thoughts referring to to the prophecies. Commentary: Despite the witches’ affect on Macbeth, Banquo additionally warns Macbeth to carefully understand witches’ prediction before he acts on them: Banquo refers to the witches as “instruments of darkness” who “tell us truths” which can be the reason for their downfall. However, Macbeth blinded ignore Banquo’s warning which then leads to his downfall.

Macbeth's vaulting ambition, ambition is what brings him to his peak of power, it is also what leads him to his downfall. Thesis statement: Vaulting Ambition is Macbeth's solely flaw; it disables him to gain his utmost desires and forces him to face his fate. Without this ambition, though, Macbeth never would have been capable to achieve his power as King of Scotland or have been capable to raise out his evil deeds. In these instances, ambition helped Macbeth do what he wanted to do. But, consequently, Macbeth's ambition has every other face and is what leads him to his tragic downfall. Had he no longer been so enveloped with turning into King and remaining powerful, he would no longer have persevered to kill innocent people in order to preserve his position. It was once because of these killings and his overbearing mindset that brought about him to be overthrown and killed himself.

Some people believe it’s the witch's and lady macbeth’s fault. I don’t think it’s mainly their fault in Macbeth’s downfall because no one can make choices for others, it’s how that person reacts to certain situations and make choices on that. I believe It's not the evil witches fault because they just made a prediction, they didn’t say anything about killing innocent people. So when they never said about killing anyone. So It’s definitely not their fault. As Macbeth’s downfall was due to killing king Duncan. It's also not completely lady macbeth's fault because she was just trying to manipulate her husband by questioning his manhood, Which was wrong but it was macbeth’s decision to ignore it or prove her wrong.

Conclusion paragraph: Macbeth’s downfall is a result of his tragic flaw which is his “ambition”. His desire for power didn’t make him realise his obsessive trait. He was never fully satisfied with his power that he had and that made him go for killing innocent people. In the end, he became a cruel and oppressive ruler and his own people led him to his death. Macbeth started seeing things in such a way that were in his favor only This impaired his judgment which in turn lead him to make the wrong decisions. The wrong decisions that he made resulted in his defeat and unsightly death. Through Macbeth’s constant need to fulfill his ambition he became very involved with himself and failed to take other people into consideration. This made him lose his feelings towards people, especially those that cared for him most. In the end, this loss of emotion left him alone and it leads to his downfall.

Works Cited

• SparkNotes, SparkNotes, https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/shakespeare/macbeth/.
• Sparknotes, SparkNotes, https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/macbeth/quote/theme/ambition
• Bl.UK,Machiavellis, http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/maciavellis-the-prince