How Does Ambition Lead To Moral Decay In Macbeth

Throughout the play we see Macbeth continuously dig himself deeper into this hole where he is committing murder and destroying his reputation, sanity, and family. He seeks the throne and succumbs to the ambition sacrificing his morals. It seems Macbeth crafts this character who puts all sense of ambition before any morals or principles to show how dangerous that can be.
Throughout Shakespeare’s Macbeth we see him use ambition as a motif to show how when unchecked it can lead to moral decay. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth seek the throne and all of its power which leads to their destruction. In Act 1 Scene 7 Macbeth comes to terms with the fact that killing Duncan is simply a move for power with no moral backings, “ I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself And falls on th’ other-”. Although Macbeth begins to realize that he is committing murders and destroying lives for power there is nothing stopping him. Unfortunately Lady Macbeth was overcome with the guilt of what she had done that she took her own life. Although this may have come as a surprise because throughout the play she was the level headed one who was pushing Macbeth to kill and was covering up for him. She even manipulates him into killing Duncan saying he isn’t a man, “When you durst do it,” she

We see Macbeth develop characters who are ambitious and greedy for power. All they see is a throne and a castle, what they are missing is the murder, deceit, and enemies that will follow when seeking these things. “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, / Shakes so my single state of man / That function is smothered in surmise, / And nothing is but what is not.”( Macbeth Act 1 Scene 3). Macbeth talks about how he dreams of murdering Duncan to steal his throne from him. Although it was just a thought, we see this along with the manipulation of his wife lead to a spring of