I will give brainliest and 40 pionts!!!! In the essay "The Tragic Hero: From Oedipus to Batman," Macbeth's hamartia (reason why
the tragic hero causes tragedy to happen) is his ambition to become king. The essay continues: In Shakespeare's Macbeth the hero is a thane (a minor ruler) in Scotland. He's the ambitious type though, so he murders the king of Scotland and becomes king himself. This crime leads Macduff, another thane, to cut off Macbeth's head.
In your response, argue for the idea that Macbeth's hamartia is actually his wife's ambition, not his own ambition. Be sure to use specific details from the play to support your idea.
Macbeth’s hamartia was his wife’s ambition, not his ambition. What the writer is forgetting to include in their essay is who guided Macbeth. In act 1, it's seen that Macbeth starts off feeling the thought of killing the king ‘horrifying’. “But if this is a good thing, why do I find myself thinking about murdering King Duncan, a thought so horrifying that it makes my hair stand on end and my heart pound inside my chest?” it states in the text. Without his wife, he would’ve never murdered the king.
This is shown later in scene 5 of act 1, how ambitious Lady Macbeth is of ending the king’s life. She even wishes she wasn’t a woman so she could kill the king herself - “Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall.” When Macbeth tells his wife that they can’t go on with this plan, where she just continues to peer pressure him. Macbeth would have never gone forth with this if it wasn’t for the overwhelming ambition his wife carried to kill the king.
