Ambition can be an extremely good thing that pushes you to your limits and gives you the motivation and drive to achieve the goal you have mentally and physically set for yourself, but at the same time ambition can be extremely disastrous and can tip you over the edge and cause you to commit crimes or do dangerous things affecting yourself and others. Ambition is defined as “a strong desire to do or achieve something” Ambition is a present theme used in the play “Macbeth” and the three films “Gattaca” “Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone” and “Forrest Gump” Everyone holds ambition but just at different levels and is displayed in many different ways. What I want to know is what caused certain individuals to rely on ambition for their successes?

In the play, “Macbeth” Shakespeare portrayed the effects of what is known as the bad side of ambition. Shakespeare specifically uses objects, and the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to show how ambition can really affect your actions. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth sees Duncan’s son Malcolm as a threat to the throne, and when Macbeth hears Duncan declare his intention for Malcolm to become the next in line. Macbeth then becomes jealous so he decides to take matters into his own hands and kill King Duncan. As he is about to kill Duncan, Macbeth sees a dagger floating in the air. Covered in blood and pointed towards the king’s chamber, the dagger represents the bloody course in which Macbeth is about to embark. “Is this a dagger which I see before me.. a dagger of the mind? a false creation?” This was the first thing that Macbeth says when he first saw the dagger. Following Duncan’s murder, Macbeth instantly becomes overwhelmed with guilt and anxiety. Macbeth then begins to experience hallucinations and has difficulty hiding his emotions. Macbeth’s mental health also starts going downhill. So at the beginning of the play, Macbeth goes from being a bloodthirsty, unsympathetic ruler, who is overconfident in his abilities to retain his title as king to an isolated, defeated, self-absorbed, unsuccessful ruler. Macbeth ends up relying on ambition for his successes and ends up being successful for a bit but then suffers the consequences of being very self absorbed and having evil desires.

In the 1997 science-fiction film: Gattaca, Andrew Niccol who is both the writer and director of the movie. He uses symbols to represent ambition. The main idea that he used was eugenics. According to knowgenetics.org eugenics is a movement that is aimed at improving the genetic composition of the human race. In the movie only the people who were seen as perfect and had no flaws in their genetic code were able to get into the space crew and as for Vincent his dream was to go to space but unfortunately he doesn’t have a perfect genetic stock. Gattaca was set in the future as all the buildings, cars and technology seems to be way more advanced than what we have here now, i believe Niccol was trying to tell us not to repeat the past and explain to us that eugenics doesn’t always have a happy ending because look what happened when Hitler used eugenics back in the day. Although Vincent wasn’t perfect and was only expected to live till he was 30, he had a massive goal that he was determined to achieve. Growing up alongside his genetically perfect brother really pushed him and gave him the drive to achieve his dream, with a bit of help from Jerome who had perfect genetics but was unfortunately physically imperfect so he wasn’t really able to do much for the company, Jerome let Vincent kind of steal his identity providing Vincent with a steady supply of urine, blood and other samples of his perfect DNA. Vincent went through alot changing himself to look like Jerome, he had to go through a painful leg-lengthening surgery to make himself the same height that Jerome was. In the end of the movie Vincent had another swimming race against his brother Anton who like i said was genetically perfect and Vincent now had the drive and was eager to win the swimming race, His brother Anton was over confident and thought he was going to win again like all the other years when he won as a kid this gave Vincent even more reason to push himself to the limits which eventually led himself to victory both in the swimming race and getting to go to space.

Harry potter, written by the famous british author, J.K Rowling. I’m talking about all the books/movies in general, they all tend to have a present theme in which rowling associates greed and the desire for power with evil. Voldemort was the prime example of how power and greed are dangerous, those who stood up to him were killed including Harry’s parents. Specifically in the first film, Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone ambition is shown through Harry getting sent the letter inviting him to attend hogwarts and his cousins who he had been living with since his parents past away ripped up the letter before Harry could see it because they were jealous and hated magic so they thought that they could just knock the magic out of him if he didn’t attend Hogwarts. After many years of living under the stairs and being treated like he meant nothing to them and feeling like he was a burden to his cousin’s lives. Harry finally got to open one of the letters that Hogwarts had sent him and he got so excited when he opened it but of course his uncle had to come in and rip up the letter which made harry more miserable than he already was. In the end, Harry did end up going off to Hogwarts. Petunia finally gave in but if Harry didn’t have that tiny bit of ambition in him then he would never have been allowed to go. Harry was driven to follow in his parent’s footsteps and to also try and be the best he could after he realized how much Petunia and her husband hated magic and didn’t want him to go.

In Winston Grooms, 1994 6 times Oscar-winning film, Forrest Gump. The main character, Forrest Gump had scoliosis and autism which like Gattaca meant he was genetically imperfect and because he had leg braces he was made fun of by the other kids but Forrest didn’t quite understand what the other kids were doing or saying so it didn’t really affect him. One day when Forrest was walking home with Jenny a whole bunch of the guys from school followed them in a truck and started throwing things at Gump and chased him down his driveway and to save his life he started attempting to run away but ended up waddling because of his leg braces, he then started to gain speed and his leg braces fell apart causing him to run like a normal person without the help from his leg braces. “Run Forrest Run” was the phrase spoken by Jenny when Forrest started running away from the guys chasing him. I believe those certain words specifically spoken by someone he loves really gave him the drive to be able to prove his doctor wrong and be able to be mobile and do things without his leg braces. At the end of the movie, Gump was offered a football scholarship to attend the university of Alabama so if he didn’t have Jenny and those guys chase him that day then Gump would never have been offered that football scholarship and therefore most likely still been in his leg braces thinking he would never be able to walk without the leg braces. Without that ambition to save his own life and be normal who knows what could have happend to Gump that day, He could have been hit by the car that the guys were chasing him with and killed.

So what did cause certain individuals to rely on ambition for their successes? In Macbeth he used bad ambition without knowing it and he ended up relying on his ambition to remain as king but then suffered the consequences and losing Lady Macbeth to suicide as she couldn’t keep the secrets of what Macbeth was capable of anymore. Gattaca, Harry Potter and Forrest gump all had the same outcome where Harry relied on his ambition to follow in his deceased parents footsteps and become one of the best wizards in Hogwarts history. Forrest gump relied on his ambition to become “normal” and so did Vincent in Gattaca.