One of the most famous lines quoted by those suggesting he was ambitious comes at the end of his soliloquy in A1 S7.

Some people argue that his wife says he’s ambitious, though what she actually says is that he’s “not without ambition” – which is a bit like saying that the new player you’ve sent to the team “isn’t not good at football.” Lady Macbeth says that her husband is not without ambition but… he clearly doesn’t have that much – and certainly not enough to make it worthy of a Shakespearean hamartia! The whole thing just feels like a stretch. And remember that Macbeth had enough drive and energy to fight the Norwegians almost single-handedly, but apparently can’t be bothered to do what he secretly wants more than anything else. And not long after that he says “If chance will have me crowned why then chance can crown me, without my stir.” Or in other words: “If it’s gonna happen then I guess it will, but I’m not doing anything about it.” Given the fact that this was really the Shakespearean equivalent of “meh,” I reall y can’t see the se as being the words of an ambitious man. After he hears what the witches have to say Macbeth says that being king “stands not within the prospect of belief.” Though these could be the words of an ambitious man, saying something isn't within the scope of belief isn't very ambitious.

In Act 1 Scene 3, Macbeth meets the witches who ‘prophesise’ that he will be king. Here, you cou ld argue that the line was simply a piece of poor characterisation, but given the fact that other, more fitting arguments are available, we don't have to accept this. But if we are to assume that the witches’ ‘prophecy’ led him to kill the king in pursuit of his own ambition, then we have to assume that he actually followed both. So this line suggests that he disdains both riches and mysticism. Surely this opening establishes him being loyal to the king, not the other way around.ĭuring this opening section, the sergeant says that Macbeth fights while “disdaining fortune.” This means that he doesn’t seek “fortune” – suggesting riches, or reward but it also suggests fortune-telling, or mysticism.

Shakespeare could have established Macbeth’s character anywhere, doing anything, and if he wanted to show that Macbeth was ambitious I imagine he would have found a better way of establishing this than showing how dedicated he was to Duncan. (The play itself starts with the witches, but the action that first establishes the character of Macbeth is him defending Duncan’s kingdom against invaders.) Surely the only reason for starting the play here was to establish Macbeth as a loyal servant of the king. Here, Shakespeare begins with Macbeth’s involvement in a battle that defends King Duncan’s kingdom against the Norwegians. It’s often good to begin with something structural, as it’s always worth remembering that a writer starts out with an empty page and chooses to begin the action somewhere. Each of the following paragraphs outlines another point until, by the end, as the evidence piles up, you have a very convincing argument that he was not being presented as ambitious at all. This makes even more sense when you bear in mind that it was written to appeal to King James I, who was a noted misogynist, who believed in the corrupting power of witches.Īs a n argument, there is no smoking gun here. Under this interpretation, the play is actually a quite misogynistic warning against the involvement of women in decisions of power. To explain why he did kill Duncan, the essay proposes that the witches in the play were supposed to be real witches, and that Macbeth was under the control of a magic spell when he killed Duncan. In light of this, it seems unrealistic to imagine that Shakespeare actually wanted to present him as being someone who was driven by powerful ambition. This essay argues that Macbeth can’t really be considered ambitious since he repeatedly said that he didn’t want to kill the king he’d never previously thought of being king, which makes the idea of him being ambitious for the throne a little far-fetched he had no involvement in – and in fact actively objected to – the development of the plan to kill the king and had previously been presented as a happy and loyal subject of the king, who saw the idea of killing the king as being abhorrent to his personal nature, hiss instincts as a man, and, in fact nature itself.

Is Macbeth Shakespeare’s most misunderstood character?Īccording to the most common interpretation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the character of Macbeth was driven to kill King Duncan because he was ambitious for the throne.

Macbeth ambition quote