How far is it correct to say that "Macbeth" is a tragedy of ambition

How far is it correct to say that “Macbeth” is a tragedy of ambition and imagination?

Ans.

In one sense it is true to maintain that “Macbeth” is both a tragedy of ambition and a tragedy of imagination. The distinction between the two statements is that in describing the play as a ‘tragedy of ambition’ we are emphasising upon the conflict between the groups of characters-the royal and the treacherous, the unambitious. The suffering born of this conflict is external. physical-the upsetting of the political order, the flight of the tragedy does not include the spiritual suffering, the inner conflict in the hero’s mind which takes it rise in imagination.

Imagination, therefore, is the source of moral conflict in Macbeth. It is both his strength nd his weakness. Through it he suffers as through it he suffers as through it he momentarily is sustained by the picture of his kingship. Whatever moral scruples come to him come from his rich imagination. It is the voices and vision which make him a victim of spiritual suffering. He hears the voice ‘sleep no more’ as he kills his king. He hears some one knocking at the gate which shuts the outer world of moral life as if it is anxious to wake him from the deed of horror he has done. He hears the grooms saying ‘Amen’ and he could not utter that blessed word. He sees the vision of the dagger leading him on to the chamber where Duncan is sleeping. He sees the ghost of Banquo and he alone sees it mockingly occupying his seat at the Banquet. He sees the ocean made red by the bloody hand that dips into it to wash away its guilty evidence. He sees that sublime vision of the naked-the incarnation of pity-which

Blows the horrid in every eye.

That tears shall drown the wind

In other words. Macbeth is shown as seeing vision and hearing voices which hail form his rich imagination. It is he imagination which draws pictures of horror arising out of his criminal deeds. The moral sense in him speaks to him (as Bradley points out) not in commands and abstract inhibition but through images and pictures vividly painted before his mind’s eye. If he had followed these voices and vision he would have been morally safe. But tragedy is that he does not do so.

The possession of a rich and sensitive imagination means that Macbeth is a good man who is not dead to the moral sense. It is only the unimaginative people who are unaffected by those compunctious visiting with which Macbeth is so deeply troubled. And it is the presence of his imagination which makes him a victim of indescribable mental and moral suffering. How deep that suffering is we know from his “asides’ and ‘soliloquies’ which are of imagination compact. In all the stages of Duncan’s murder-before, during and after Macbeth’s imagination is fired at the thought of murder. It makes him horribly aware of the gruesomeness, the dishonour and ungratefulness of the crime. It makes him aware of all the consequences of that crime. His soliloquy before the murder is important in this connection. It is crowded with images which rush on rapidly from the white heat of his imagination.

Conclusion

In short, the tragedy of Macbeth and of his wife is the tragedy of imagination-in the one there is an excess of it, in the other there is not enough of it. Both suffer on this account. Lady Macbeth did possess some of it, the picture of Duncan resembling her own father is the solitary example of it. She however chose to suppress it, and it, and it wakes up in her sleep-walking scene which shows her to be the victim of an outraged imagination. She who dismissed the bloody spots as capable of being washed off with a “little water” is presented as continually washing imagination which causes mental and moral suffering. This is their true tragedy.