Romeo And Juliet Ambition Essay - 1848 Words

The beautiful thing about Shakespeare’s writings is that while they may not be canonically connected, they share similar aspects in terms of central themes or driving forces. This is most notable in many of Shakespeare’s tragedies since he uses many of the same faults of man to create a tragic ending. One of these recurring fatal flaws is ambition, and interestingly enough, Shakespeare crafts his work in such a way that the characters all show their passionate ambition in very different ways depending on the story. Shakespeare uses ambition as a prominent driving force in Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, and Titus Andronicus, and how he views ambition changes between each story. Hamlet and Julius Caesar are both primarily driven by†¦show more content†¦These drastic actions show how ambitious Hamlet was to avenge the wrongful death of his father and remove Claudius from the throne. Claudius is the other major example of ambition in the story, as shown through his drastic measures taken to assure that no one discovers that he killed the King and used his death as an opportunity to take up the crown. It is revealed to Hamlet by his father’s ghost that Claudius killed the former ruler in his own garden by pouring poison into his ear. This is very characteristic of Shakespeare’s tragedies, characters will kill each other off for their own ambitious agendas without hesitation for morals or law and Claudius fits into this trend perfectly. To further ensure that his status as king is not compromised, he seduces the King’s wife, Gertrude, and attempts to get Hamlet to forget his father by calling his grief childish and a hindrance to his role as the prince (365). The King’s ghost informs Hamlet that Gertrude was one of the most virtuous women alive and wouldn’t have taken lightly to his sudden death, so it is apparent that Claudius to ok extreme measures to get Gertrude on his side. To go through all this work to ensure that he remained in power proves that Claudius was just as ambitious to achieve power as Hamlet was to remove him from it. The famous story of Caesar’s rise to power and the opposition he faces from his so called friends and allies, Julius Caesar is another prominentShow MoreRelatedThe Tragedy Of Macbeth By William Shakespeare1582 Words   |  7 Pagesled to his tragic demise. The tragedy of Macbeth was written by famous poet William Shakespeare in the earl sixteen hundredth. The play dramatizes the destructive physical and mental effects of radical ambition for people who seek authority for the benefit of an individual. 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