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Jake Baldauf
Starry
English 9 Honors
31 March 2016
Ambition
Ambition is a trait of many endings. Ambition is the will to and temptation to succeed.
Ambition is reaching ones goals by pushing through anything interfering. Ambition is both used
for pleasant beneficial causes or unjust, cruel causes. In many various cases in both real-world
examples such as with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Adolf Hitler, and in Macbeth ambition had
its great successes but also it's terrible downfalls.
Ambition had many great results in both Macbeth and in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s life.
Dr. King had great ambition to achieve equality between all races in America much like how the
Constitution decreed, All men are created equal (Founding Fathers 1). He worked constantly
for success and fought through obstacles such as jail or white supremacists who firebombed his
family home along the path to obtaining his goal (History Channel 3). Kings ambition drove
him through the bombings and disbelief and assassination attempts and racial slurs and arrests.
As a result of his relentless effort, Martin Luther King Jr. finally achieved his goal on July 2,
1964 when the Civil Rights Act passed through the Supreme court thereby granting equality to
beings of every race. Later that year King was entitled Man of the Year by TIME magazine and
also became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner at 35 years old. His life and work goes to
show that ambition towards a goal can lead to promising results and effects for even more people
than just the ambitious one. Furthermore, Malcolm from Macbeth demonstrated a similar drive
of ambition to achieve royal power and to free Scotland as did Martin Luther King for his goal.

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In the end, the two both achieved their desires in their specific realms. Ambition in many cases,
as seen with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm from Macbeth, allowed the ambitious persons
to persevere no matter what was thrown in their path. Nothing could stop them from reaching
their destiny with the guidance and motivation of ambition.
At the same time ambition doesnt have any negative aspects right? Wrong. Ambition has
negative aspects to it much like anything else in the universe. Specifically one can see this
downside of ambition through Macbeth in his play and Adolf Hitler during World War II.
Adolf Hitler utilized loads of ambition to accomplish his not so fabulous goals of eradicating the
Jewish and taking over the world, but in his eyes this was not a terrible and wrong thing to be
doing. Consequently, his powerful ambition led to a world war and the systematic, bureaucratic,
state-sponsored persecution of six million Jews plus millions involved with the war (United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum 1). Thus, his desire resulted in tragedies in heartbreaks in
broken families in death in inexplicable crimes. On top of this, one can also see Macbeth and his
ambition which had negative elements similar to that of Hitlers intentions. To become King
Macbeth needed to kill Duncan, which he did upsetting numerous people of Scotland, and when
he became King, Macbeth used his ambition to kill Banquos known relatives allowing Macbeth
to stay seated as King for a longer period. His determination which he saw as beneficial was
incredibly harmful to others resulting in many unnecessary deaths, yet Macbeth didnt realize
this as he solely cared about protecting his royal position of Scotland. Basically he became
overambitious and ended up paying for it in the end. In ambitions often success or strive to
success, catastrophic consequences can be clouded in the desire of achieving a goal.
Ambition can be a savior or a driver or a murderer or a peacemaker or an attention caller.
Throughout world history and literature, ambition can be observed to cause and result in multiple

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differentiating situations; some good some bad. Ambition can be devoted towards a beneficial
cause such as equal rights as seen with Martin Luther King Jr, or it can be used for dark, evil
intentions such as genocide as seen with Adolf Hitler and Macbeth in the play of Macbeth. One
trait leads to a book of many plot twists and conclusions. Ambition is an angel shining on the
path to benefits until it becomes a plight that leads to misery and disappointment.

Works Cited
Biography.com Editors. "Martin Luther King Jr." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 2016.
Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
Shakespeare, William, and Alan Durband. Macbeth: Modern English Version Side-by-side with
Full Original Text. Woodbury, NY: Barron's, 1985. Print.

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United States Holocaust Museum. "Introduction to the Holocaust." United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 29 Jan. 2016. Web. 27
Mar. 2016.