Ambition shapes everyone’s lives in some way, controlling how we spend our time and how we act. A fine balance between ambition and morality is needed to have a happy and satisfying life, its a fine line between following our own goals and valuing other peoples thoughts. Macbeth, Gattaca, Lord Of The Rings and Ozymandias are all texts that show good or bad examples of an ambitious nature, and how achieving ambitious pursuits on the characters own terms does not necessarily produce contentment. The real art to life is judging when to abandon our own ambitions to help others. Macbeth highlights the effects of unrestrained and unrespectable ambition, Gattaca shows the amazing affects of determination and ambition in the face of oppression, Lord Of The Rings gives examples of ambition with and without morality, and the type of personality it breeds, and lastly, Ozymandias shows the futility of our ambitions. All of these texts use symbolism to highlight the lures and affects of ambition, and highlight the true challenge of life: Restraining our ambitions.
Macbeth is a tragedy written over 400 years ago by William Shakespeare, and is about a well respected Scottish Thane, Macbeth, who through following his ambitions, works his way up the ranks in society, all the way up to King of Scotland. However, Macbeth becomes so engrossed in his own ambitious goals that he loses all his morality and restraint. He decides to pursue his dreams no matter the cost when he says “the firstlings of my heart will be the firstlings of my hand”. He murders, tricks and slaughters his way to the throne, and by the end of the play “His title hangs loose about him, like a dwarfish thief in a giants robes”, he has lost respect from all his country, and his lack of morality has led him to become a harsh and hated “tyrant”. Symbolism is used heavily in this play to communicate these themes, one important one being the symbol of a dagger. It is used to represent Macbeths own personal ambitions, and represents how ambition can be potentially dangerous. The overarching theme of this play is that our ambitions need to be balanced with good morals if we are to truly succeed, and that ambition with no morality to balance it ends up creating a mean and unlikable character.
Gattaca is a film released in 1997 and directed by Andrew Niccol, and is set in a future society of genetically selected humans who are born to succeed. The downside of this advanced society is anyone who is a “faith birth” aka not genetically selected at birth, are considered misfits and are shunned by everyone. The main character Vincent is one of these “misfits”, and his dreams of becoming an astronaut for the space agency “Gattaca” are crushed by his “inferior” genotype. Through hard work, dedication, deceit, and most importantly a very ambitious personality, Vincent manages to cheat and fake his way through the DNA tests and against all the odds, qualifies for a manned mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. Even though Vincent had just as much ambition as Macbeth did, Vincent and Macbeth ended up as very different characters. Macbeth the tyrant, and Vincent the high achieving undercover astronaut. Even though Vincent’s life of deceit wasn’t exactly clean and honest, its fair to say he showed a lot more restraint and ultimately, more morality while pursuing his ambitions than the murderous Macbeth did. Rocket ships are a symbol that represent ambition through the movie, showing mankind’s unquenchable need to challenge ourselves. They are the driving force behind Vincent’s life. This movie gives us a very different message from Macbeth: Having huge ambitions, even without all the desired morality to balance it, still leads to success and fulfillment in life.
Lord of The Rings is an epic saga of adventure written in the 1900s by JRR Tolkien. Set in a fantasy world of dwarves and hobbits, elves and orcs, wizards and black riders, its a story of struggles against an oppressively power to save Middle Earth from enslavement and destruction. The evil bad guy is Sauron, and he is trying to take all the rings of power, meaning he will be able to create and destroy as he pleases, and effectively take control of Middle earth. The only thing keeping his plans on hold is the One Ring. The One Ring is a ring that “binds” all the other rings, meaning Sauron will be able to easily bend them to his wills. However, this ring happens to be in the hands of a respectable, honest, and rather innocent hobbit called Frodo. Through the story, Frodo and his often unlikely companions set out on a hopeless and dangerous journey to the “Cracks of Doom” in the heart of the enemy’s empire and destroy the One Ring. I find it very interesting comparing Sauron to Frodo: Sauron has colossal ambitions of control and power, while Frodo has hardly any big ambitions, his desire to destroy the ring being fueled only by his sense of responsibility and need to do the right thing, and we can see his willingness when he says “I will take the ring, though I do not know the way”. These two personalities produce very different characters, Sauron who is hated by everyone (even his own armies) and Frodo who becomes a humble and loved hero. This is interesting because it shows us how often doing the right thing is more important than pursuing own own goals for our own benefit, and leads to being much more respected and appreciated by others. Another big theme is the lure of power and the effect it has on humans. This is represented by the symbol of a ring, and the story shows how a weak will is easily sucked into pursuing power at all costs. Overall, it sends a different message from Gattaca- that you DO need morality to find fulfillment in life, just like the humble Hobbit Frodo.
Ozymandias is a poem written in 1817 by Percy B Shelley. It shows that whatever happens, and no matter the amount of morality vs ambition, we end up dead. It shows this through the symbol of sand, when it says
“Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Showing that no matter how proud, successful, kind, or evil we have been, our lives will end and we to will turn to insignificant and forgotten grains of sand. This is why it is so important to leave behind a good legacy, and also proves that a much more noble life goal is to leave behind a good memory and legacy for the good of others, rather than just advancing your own power and success.
All these texts have given examples of the effects of ambition- both good and bad. Macbeth tells of the dangers of unrestrained ambitions, while Gattaca shows how beneficial ambition can be. Lord Of The Rings gives us examples of characters with very different amounts of ambition and morality, and uncovers how the key to being successful is to have strong morals to control the ambitions. lastly, Ozymandias conveys the insignificance of all human endeavor, and highlights the importance of leaving a good legacy behind. From all these texts, separated by time, genera and topic, we get very different messages about ambition. However, a common theme is the constant battle between ambition and morality in everyone, and I can conclude that the true difficulty in life is not finding or pursuing our own personal ambitions, but keeping our ambitions in check with morality and self control, so that we leave a good legacy, and ultimately a good world behind for the future.
