Examples Of Greed In Macbeth

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Ambition Unchecked Can Lead to Greed
Ambition is a natural desire in all humans. It is this desire that makes us work hard to achieve success, whether it be on the playing field, in school, in business, or in life in general. However, ambition gone unchecked, can lead some individuals to become greedy and seek more than they need. Greed can be in the form of anything. Through the ages, it has most commonly been for money, admiration, fame, and power.
According to Neel Burton, a psychologist, “A person who is consumed by greed becomes utterly fixated on the object of his greed. Life in all its richness and complexity is reduced to little more than a quest to accumulate and hoard as much as possible of whatever it is that he craves. Even though he has met his every reasonable need and more, …show more content…
Some of these common traits that lead to their downfall and impacted others included: greed, jealousy, and machismo.
The first of these parallels was greed. In Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth was considered to be a great general in the Scottish army, who was not inclined to commit violent or evil deeds. However, Macbeth did crave power. After meeting the three witches and having the first prophecy come true (to become the Thane of Cawdor), he obsesses over the second prophecy--that of being king. To achieve this, he kills Duncan who is presently the king of Scotland. At first, Macbeth feels guilty and as the play moves forward Macbeth goes crazy and begins hallucinating.
Once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth decide to use violence to further their quest for power, it is difficult for them to stop. Macbeth sees multiple threats to the throne--Banquo, Fleance, and McDuff, and was tempted to remove the threats by using violence. When Duncan announces that his son, Malcolm, will be heir to the throne, Macbeth sees him as a threat to completing his destiny of becoming king. Macbeth (in an aside)

Examples Of Greed In Macbeth

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