Act 5: ambition and visions

Ambition:

"wash your hands; put on your nightgown; look not so pale! I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried. He cannot come out on's grave." scene 1 line 65!

Lady doesnt want to feel guilty anymore about the killings and it is her ambition to feel "clean" again.

MACDUFF […] Either thou, Macbeth, Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge, I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be; By this great clatter, one of greatest note Seems bruited. Let me find him, Fortune! And more I beg not. (5.8.1)

This is how to do ambition right: Macduff wants to avenge his family and his king, but he doesn’t seek power for himself. He doesn't want to rule fortune; he's content to be fortune's tool. Clearly, he's going to be the one to take down the boss.

MACBETH She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. (5.5.2)

In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. Or something along those lines. Here, Macbeth is realizing that all his striving was literally useless: Malcolm is going to be king; he himself is about to die; and his wife is gone. (So much for her ambition, too.) But if there's nothing to be gained, then what's the point of living at all? Macbeth doesn't leave us with much of answer. Are we just supposed to live our lives hopelessly until we die? Or is there a nobler way of putting up with life's ultimate futility?

“Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.”

It is his ambition to kill him as he is not born from his mothers womb

Vision:

"yet heres a spot" scene 1 line 34

Lady macbeth keeps thinking that there is blood on her hands as if it is obvious that she is the killer and that the guilt will never go away

Lady Macbeth sees the blood on her hands and can’t take it off