Ambition, Blood, and Evil in Shakespeare's Macbeth

Introduction: Ambition as the Central Theme

Of all the themes in Shakespeare's Macbeth, one of the most essential is ambition. It is the ambition of the title character — and his wife — that drives the play forward. This theme appears connected with Macbeth the very first time he is mentioned and continues throughout the play. The ambition of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is often accompanied, or even illustrated, by the image of blood, and is connected to many other characters as well. The witches, especially, do not seem ambitious themselves and yet have a very interesting relationship with Macbeth's ambition. His desire to become king consumes him; driven by this ambition, goaded by his wife, and tricked by fate, Macbeth makes a rapid descent from good to evil.

Macbeth's Early Glory and the Witches' Prophecy

Macbeth is first mentioned by the witches in the very first scene of the play, when they decide to head to "the heath. / There to meet with Macbeth" (Act I, sc. 1, 6–7). The witches let the reader know that Macbeth survives the battle. More details emerge in the following scene, when the Sergeant says Macbeth fought while "disdaining fortune" (I, 2, 17). Both of these early mentions of Macbeth are evidence of his fame, among mortals and the weird sisters alike. The reader therefore already has an image of Macbeth as a person who seeks — and achieves — glory despite risk, and the battle description is notably bloody. In addition, Macbeth's own sword "smoked with bloody execution," making the deaths he caused sound almost official and yet also deeply violent, foreshadowing his rise to real political power (I, 1, 18). Even this early in the play, the image of blood and the theme of ambition are united in this character. The Sergeant who delivers the description of Macbeth's valor does so even as he himself is bleeding nearly to death from his own wounds — perhaps the clearest early example of the bloody cost at which Macbeth must earn his glory and power.

The next scene is not bloody, but it certainly whets Macbeth's ambition when the witches tell him he shall be Thane of Cawdor and then King. When messengers from King Duncan confirm that he is now Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth is not alarmed by the spookiness of the occurrence but rather turns to Banquo — whom the witches said would bear kings — and says, "Do you not hope your children shall be kings, / When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me / Promised no less to them?" (I, 3, 118–20). Macbeth's response is instantly ambitious. Banquo, on the other hand, displays caution: "oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / the instruments of darkness tell us truths" (I, 3, 123–4). This warning turns out to be all too prescient.

The Murder of King Duncan

Before Macbeth moves against Banquo, he murders King Duncan. He almost does not go through with it, but Lady Macbeth convinces him first that he is no man if he does not, and second by outlining how they will escape blame: "what not put upon / His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt" (I, 7, 70–1). The word "spongy" refers both to the plan of getting the officers drunk and to the way their clothes will soak up the blood from the daggers — a single word carrying both literal and symbolic weight.

In the scene immediately after the murder, Lady Macbeth tells her husband to "wash this filthy witness from your hand" and to "smear / the sleepy grooms with blood" (II, 2, 44; 46–7). Just as in the later scene with Banquo's murderer, blood marks both a step forward in ambition and a deeper immersion in evil. In this same scene, Macbeth reveals that he could not say "Amen" when the guards said "God bless us": "But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'? / I had most need of blessing" (II, 2, 28–9). This inability is a symbol of the evil in which Macbeth is now entangled and from which he will be unable to return.

Conclusion: Blood, Ambition, and the Bounds of Evil

Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth suffer from a surfeit of ambition, and each step in their path upward toward the throne and downward toward the depths of human depravity is accompanied by blood, whether real, imagined, or both. Blood is something directly tied to royalty; the issues of heredity were major concerns during Shakespeare's day and during the Scottish King James's rise to the English throne. Perhaps part of the message of this play is that one must not overstep the bounds of blood — or perhaps simply to avoid bloody bounds altogether.