How is ambition presented in Macbeth?

How does ambition develop across Macbeth?

Act 1 shows ambition rewarded the honest way. Macbeth wins a battle for King Duncan and is made Thane of Cawdor (a thane is a Scottish lord). Then the witches promise he will be king, and a darker ambition wakes up. When Duncan names his son Malcolm as heir in Act 1 Scene 4, Macbeth sees Malcolm as "a step / On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap". Lady Macbeth's ambition moves even faster. Reading his letter, she worries only that her husband lacks the ruthlessness his ambition needs.

In Act 1 Scene 7 Macbeth admits that ambition is his only reason to kill Duncan, and briefly decides against it. Lady Macbeth talks him round. In Act 2 the ambition is achieved. Duncan is murdered, his sons flee abroad, and Macbeth goes to Scone, where Scottish kings were crowned.

Act 3 shows what ambition becomes once it has what it wanted: fear. "To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely thus," Macbeth says. The witches promised the crown to Banquo's descendants, so Macbeth complains that he holds "a fruitless crown" and has Banquo killed. By Act 4 ambition has become tyranny, the cruel rule of one man, and he has Macduff's family murdered for revenge alone.

Act 5 shows the cost. Angus, one of the Scottish lords, says those Macbeth commands "move only in command, / Nothing in love", and the title he killed for hangs on him like stolen clothes. He dies in battle, and Malcolm, the rightful heir, is crowned. Shakespeare also gives us other ambitions to measure Macbeth's against. Banquo hopes for his children's future but will not act to win it, and Malcolm takes the throne back by fighting for his country rather than against it.

What are the key moments for ambition?

Act 1 Scene 4: "Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires." Macbeth's first open admission of ambition is also a request for darkness. The adjectives "black and deep" make his desires sound evil and bottomless, and asking the stars to hide suggests he knows heaven would not approve. It is an aside, spoken to the audience while other characters are on stage, so we share a secret he keeps from the king.

Act 1 Scene 5: "Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it". Reading the letter, Lady Macbeth decides her husband has ambition but not the "illness", meaning the wickedness, that should go with it. Her language treats ruthlessness as a necessary tool and kindness as a flaw. The repeated "without" hints at the play's view: ambition turns deadly when it is cut off from morality.

Act 1 Scene 7: "Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th' other". This is an extended metaphor: a metaphor describes one thing as if it were another, and an extended one keeps the image going over several lines. Macbeth has already said he has "no spur" to drive his plan on, as if the plan were a horse. "Vaulting" means leaping, and ambition is the rider who leaps so hard that he lands on the far side. Macbeth predicts his own fall in the same breath as he names his motive.

Act 5 Scene 2: "Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe / Upon a dwarfish thief". Angus describes Macbeth's title with a simile, a comparison using "like" or "as". Macbeth looks shrunken inside a role he stole. The image picks up clothing imagery from Act 1, when Macbeth asked why he was being dressed "In borrowed robes". Ambition has given him clothes that never fitted.

What context matters when writing about ambition in Macbeth?

Jacobeans, people living in the reign of James I, were taught that God had set everyone in their proper place, with the king at the top of human society. This idea is often called the Great Chain of Being. Wanting to rise through courage and loyal service, as Macbeth does in Act 1, could be honourable. Grabbing a place God had given to someone else was a sin, and killing a king was the worst version of it.

The divine right of kings, the belief that monarchs are chosen by God, raised the stakes further, and James I believed in it strongly. Malcolm's line "Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell" recalls Lucifer, the brightest angel, who in Christian tradition was thrown out of heaven for his pride. Many in the audience would have heard Macbeth's story as a smaller version of that fall.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when a group of Catholic plotters planned to blow up James and Parliament, was fresh in everyone's memory. A play in which ambition leads a trusted man to kill his king, and in which the killer is destroyed, suited an audience that had so recently come close to losing its own king.

What might an exam question on ambition in Macbeth ask?

Ambition can be asked about directly, or it can sit inside a question on Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. On AQA the Shakespeare question is Section A of Paper 1: you get an extract, start with it, then write about the play as a whole, for 30 marks plus 4 for spelling, punctuation and grammar (AO4). A strong answer traces how ambition changes, so use moments from across the whole play rather than only the opening acts. Most boards set a similar extract-based question.

Two focuses to practise:

• Starting with Lady Macbeth's reaction to the letter in Act 1 Scene 5, explore how Shakespeare presents ambition.
• Starting with Macbeth's soliloquy in Act 3 Scene 1, explore how Shakespeare presents what ambition does to Macbeth once he is king.

What does a strong paragraph on ambition look like?

Here is an original model paragraph for the second focus:

Once Macbeth has the crown, Shakespeare shows that ambition cannot be satisfied. In his Act 3 Scene 1 soliloquy, a speech alone on stage, Macbeth complains that the witches placed "a fruitless crown" on his head. The adjective "fruitless" comes from farming and childbirth: his power will grow nothing and pass to no son. So the ambition that killed Duncan now demands Banquo's death too. Shakespeare's audience saw the crown as God's gift, passed down a family line, so they would notice the bitter twist: Macbeth has a throne he cannot hand on. His ambition has won him a title, but no future.

The paragraph zooms in on a single word, then uses context to explain why that word would have mattered to the first audience.

Key quotations on ambition to learn

Between them, these six cover ambition from its first stirring to its collapse.

• "why do you dress me / In borrowed robes?" (Act 1 Scene 3): the first clothing image, for a title Macbeth believes still belongs to someone else.
• "Stars, hide your fires" (Act 1 Scene 4): ambition that already needs darkness to hide in.
• "Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it" (Act 1 Scene 5): Lady Macbeth sees wickedness as the missing ingredient.
• "Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself" (Act 1 Scene 7): Macbeth names his motive and foresees his fall.
• "To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely thus" (Act 3 Scene 1): power brings fear instead of peace.
• "like a giant's robe / Upon a dwarfish thief" (Act 5 Scene 2): stolen power that never fitted him.