Motif Of Nature In Macbeth

Words: 848
Pages: 4

In the book Macbeth, Shakespeare’s motif of nature reveals Macbeth’s hidden ambitions, and how one’s ambitions can take away their values as well as their sense of reasoning. A major motif that was established in the beginning of the book was nature, and Shakespeare’s tone clearly conveyed the fact that the changes in nature was in sync with the changes in Macbeth’s values/nature, and what changed Macbeth’s values/nature was his ambition to become king once he was given his fate from the Three Witches. Shakespeare proved this to the audience by conveying Macbeth’s decline in sanity and constant reminders of the motif of nature.
Macbeth’s constant mentionings of nature reveals how ambition is overpowering his moral values. Macbeth starts to use night as
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Macbeth describes his moral values as the “traveling lamp” because a traveling lamp guides one through darkness, just like good or bad values guide a person through life. Macbeth feels like his values are being “strangled” by his ambition for power, which is represented as darkness. Macbeth acknowledges his ambitions for power are unhealthy as he describes his ambitions as “dark” as he has to break his moral values to gain power. Similarly, earlier in the book, after receiving his fate from the Three Weird Sisters, Macbeth states, “Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires” (1.4.57,58). Macbeth this quote as a rhyme to emphasize his desperateness to hide his ambitions for king because he knows that they will be gone as soon as he commits his murder. Macbeth describes his values …show more content…
Shakespeare managed to use the nature motif in such a way so the audience could see the slow decline of Macbeth’s innocence as well as his values disappearing one by one, sending the audience one message, being overly ambitious can lead to dire