Macbeth’s Chief Theme

After reading the great play Macbeth, the chief theme Shakespeare smacks the audience over the head with over and over again is ambition and the power of its corruption.

Shakespeare uses the general Macbeth to demonstrate how unchecked ambition can destroy one’s good morals. Here we see a brave and loyal soldier in the beginning of the play. But after the witches prophesize his future to him and it starts to come true, Macbeth’s moral soul starts to decay into rotting flesh. He brings sorrow and terror to the once peaceful Scotland when he kills Macbeth Duncan. At first he feels a great amount of guilt for his crimes. But in time as he keeps killing people, what little remorse he had left dies away. Macbeth’s wild ambition and greed is what led to his moral decay and eventual downfall.

Ambition is like most of everything in life. It may be good to have but too much can be a horrible and deadly thing. This deadly sin leads to people making the wrong decisions on life such as in Macbeth’s case, murder.