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Ambition in Macbeth — theme analysis

Macbeth · William Shakespeare · Set text on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes

In one sentence. The play's named engine — 'vaulting ambition' — examined not as desire for achievement but as the willingness to break the world to place yourself higher in it.

This study ends with William Shakespeare. Build your reading of ambition in Macbeth, teach it, then defend it against William Shakespeare.

How ambition works in Macbeth

The central idea, in plain words: in Macbeth, ambition destroys the very things it wins. Shakespeare builds this as a chain, step by step. (1) The desire. When the witches hail him 'King hereafter' (1.3), Macbeth starts as if guilty and within moments imagines murder — so the text suggests, though it never states, that the wish was already there; by 1.4, once Malcolm is named heir, he is hiding 'black and deep desires'. (2) The choice, made knowingly. In the 'If it were done' soliloquy (1.7) he lists every reason not to kill Duncan and admits his only motive is 'vaulting ambition' — he sees the cost before he pays it. (3) Gain becomes fear. Once king, he finds 'To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely thus' (3.1): the crown brings no peace, only the need to kill again. (4) Fear becomes slaughter — Banquo, then Macduff's family. (5) The final account. In the 'Tomorrow' speech (5.5) he finds that life signifies 'nothing'. The Grade 9 argument: each thing ambition wins takes away his ability to enjoy it — first sleep, then the feast, then his marriage, and finally any sense that life means something.

“To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely thus.” — Macbeth, Act 3 Scene 1

The crown achieved and instantly worthless: 'nothing' is the exact word, and the play will keep it (the 'tomorrow' speech ends on 'nothing' too — 'signifying nothing'). Ambition's object dissolves at the moment of grasp; only 'safely' — security, the tyrant's obsession — remains, and security requires endless further crime.

Methods: antithesis · echo of 'nothing'

Use this in an essay. Link ambition to the Jacobean frame: in a divinely ordered hierarchy (the Great Chain of Being), ambition above your station was not a career strategy but a form of rebellion against creation — which is why the play prices it in cosmic disorder, not just personal guilt.

Essay questions to practise

  • How does Shakespeare present ambition as dangerous?
  • 'Macbeth's ambition is not his own — it is planted in him.' How far do you agree?
  • How does Shakespeare present the consequences of ambition?

The characters who carry ambition

An essay on ambition is built from the characters. Each line below is from that character's own study — follow it for the full analysis.

  • Macbeth — he is the theme — use the 'vaulting ambition' audit as your anchor and the 'tomorrow' speech as its receipt.
  • Lady Macbeth — hers is ambition FOR another — 'the golden round' is always his crown — which complicates the theme usefully.
  • The Witches — they supply the object ('King hereafter') but nothing shows them creating the desire. The evidence that it may predate them is in 1.3 — Banquo sees him 'start' and 'seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair', and within moments Macbeth is imagining murder ('my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical'). 'Black and deep desires' comes AFTER the witches, in 1.4, once Malcolm is named heir: use it for the desire hardening, not for where it began.

More ambition quotations, from the Macbeth quote bank

Each is analysed in full — speaker, scene, techniques, structure, context and essay use — on the Macbeth key quotes page; the line here is what the words are doing.

“Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires”

Macbeth · Act 1 Scene 4

Prayer inverted: heaven asked to stop watching so ambition can work. Full analysis →

“I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself”

Macbeth · Act 1 Scene 7

The honest audit: no grievance, no cause — only ambition, and he names its overshoot in advance. Full analysis →

“yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness”

Lady Macbeth · Act 1 Scene 5

Her reading of her husband: kindness diagnosed as obstacle, milk as weakness. Full analysis →

“But screw your courage to the sticking-place, / And we'll not fail.”

Lady Macbeth · Act 1 Scene 7

Courage as a mechanism to be wound; failure dismissed by plural confidence. Full analysis →

“Nought's had, all's spent, / Where our desire is got without content”

Lady Macbeth · Act 3 Scene 2

The ledger of ambition: everything paid, nothing possessed. Full analysis →

“Macbeth / Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above / Put on their instruments.”

Malcolm · Act 4 Scene 3

The counter-attack sanctified: heaven arms; the tyrant is fruit past season. Full analysis →

Essays on ambition in Macbeth

How does Shakespeare present Macbeth's ambition?

Thesis: Shakespeare presents ambition as a force that destroys what it wins: the desire surfaces the instant the prophecy is heard (and may already have been there), it is weighed and chosen with open eyes, and it is paid for in exactly what it was meant to gain — sleep, the feast, the marriage and, at last, meaning.

  1. Where the ambition comes from: in 1.3 Macbeth 'starts' at 'King hereafter' and imagines murder within moments — the witches name the crown, but nothing shows them planting the murder (contrast Banquo, who hears a prophecy too and stays loyal). Separate what the text SHOWS (his instant leap to murder) from what we INFER (that the wish predates the witches), and note the debated 1.7 line 'What beast was't then / That made you break this enterprise to me?'. 'Black and deep desires' (1.4, after Malcolm is named heir) shows the desire hardening.
  2. Ambition audited: the 1.7 soliloquy's dismantled reasons and the vaulting-horse metaphor — clarity as the horror; the marriage supplies the missing spur.
  3. Each gain is a loss: 'To be thus is nothing' — the nothing-motif; sleep murdered, feast broken, wife excluded.
  4. The final reckoning: in 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow' (5.5) everything ambition won adds up to 'nothing'; all that is left is the soldier's courage ('Lay on, Macduff'), the one quality he started with.
  5. Context close: Chain-of-Being ambition as rebellion against creation; Holinshed's long reign compressed into sleepless weeks — the compression IS the judgement.

Thesis statements that argue it

  • The Macbeths' marriage is the tragedy's true protagonist: its persuasions, exclusions and separate deaths chart ambition's power to consume precisely the partnership it was meant to crown.

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Teach it — Explain your reading of ambition in Macbeth to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  2. Defend it — Hold your reading of ambition in Macbeth against William Shakespeare in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
  3. Then the exam — 4 authored exam-style questions on ambition in Macbeth, marked on Incandio with the mistake you actually made named.

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Carry on through Macbeth

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