Explore Shakespeare’s use of language devices and dramatic effects and how they reveal the action of ambition on the characters Macbeth or Lady Macbeth.

Sir William Shakespeare, An English playwright very well known for his late 1500/early 1600 plays which involve an entire lot of dramatic works, subjects, and styles. Throughout his play, “Macbeth”, Shakespeare demonstrates the destructive effect of ambition when it is not guarded by morality. Shakespeare reveals this to us using symbols, metaphors, and dramatic irony.

Blood is one of the main symbols in the play. “Out, damned spot” was the quote spoken by Lady Macbeth as she was sleepwalking through Macbeth’s castle, the night before Macbeth’s battle against Macduff & Malcolm. The “spot” she is referring to the spot of blood she seems to have on her hands from the crime she and her husband, Macbeth have committed. Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth seem to be a bit rough around the edges, people who aren’t afraid of getting rid of something or even someone who gets in their way. Although Lady Macbeth is a woman and will most likely end up regretting the crimes that she has been involved in. She commits the murder and starts felling super guilty and due to an entire lot of guilt she is holding she started sleepwalking and talking quite regularly, Lady Macbeth is only starting to feel the consequences of her and her husband’s gruesome actions. It ended up getting worse and she accidentally confessed the crimes whilst sleepwalking. She enters a room holding a light where a doctor and gentlewoman were present. She confessed by saying “Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; not look so pale — I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave” and the doctor replies with “even so” and then Lady Macbeth speaks another quote “To bed, to bed, to bed! There’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. — To bed, to bed, to bed!” basically Lady Macbeth is saying that she knows where Banquo went and what happened to him and that nothing can be done about it and when she says “there’s knocking at the gate” I believe she is referring to someone knowing about what happened to Banquo and knows Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are held responsible for his death and is wanting to confront them about it. Lady Macbeth then returns to bed without any knowledge of what she has just done to herself and her husband. She also says “Make my blood thick” by saying this she is wanting to be cold-hearted so she no longer feels anything and the pain and guilt she has put upon herself would just disappear.

At the beginning of the play (scene 1, act 5)  Lady Macbeth’s first display of ambition was when she says “Thou wouldst be great. Art not without ambition” this quote symbolizes the ambition her husband Macbeth holds, enough to be a great king in fact. Wouldst means “Would like to” so Lady Macbeth is saying that her husband, Macbeth would like to become king and has good intentions. Lady Macbeth says this when she finds herself reflecting on her husband’s character, knowing that Macbeth is more than capable of ambitious dreams but believes he is reluctant to show the cruel behavior involved in those dreams. These lines also seem to reflect Lady Macbeth’s very own beliefs of power in which only individuals who are willing to set their ethics aside will make an appearance to greatness. These lines also show that Lady Macbeth knows and understands her husband very thoroughly and displays the role of a “sound judge” of character.  

In Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy, she uses another quote “Unsex me here”. A soliloquy is “An act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play.” – Google dictionary ?q=what+is+a+soliloquy&oq=what+is+a+solil&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l7.4962j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 so in other words a soliloquy is a dramatic effect that is often used in plays to speak one’s thoughts aloud. Ambition seems to also be a common theme that pushes Lady Macbeth to say not very smart, potentially life-threatening things. When she says “Unsex me here” she is meaning that she doesn’t want to be a woman anymore because being a woman and committing the crimes she has committed isn’t a good look so she must want to become a male so she is able to do the things a male can do because back then females weren’t able to do very many things, males did everything. Females were basically just housewives. When she says this she is also kind of saying that she wants to commit the murder as she believes Macbeth isn’t capable of the murder and she doesn’t trust that he will do it right.

She then says “hell is murky” when she states this she is meaning that she believes she is already in hell and knows that it is murky. She now knows that she exposed herself and her husband and came clean of all the crimes they have committed whilst she was sleepwalking and sleep talking. She now believes that she has already gone to hell even though she is still alive at this point. She knows that she is going to hell because she killed an innocent man just because he got in the way of her husband, Macbeth’s role in becoming king. Later on, in the play, Lady Macbeth ends up taking her own life because she could no longer deal with all the guilt that has been put upon her and the crimes she has committed.

In Shakespeare’s tragic play “Macbeth” Shakespeare successfully uses symbols, metaphors, and dramatic irony to display the destructive effect of ambition in Lady Macbeth. He puts a simple image in the reader’s minds by using short sentences and meaning full words to paint the picture in our minds of what is happening just by reading the script.