The Beast
Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
And when he once obtains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
Ambition is young at heart in the human soul. It is overrun by the desire of greed, dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of ambition is merely the shadow of a dream, the dream of having it all. A man who is on top of the world and has it all wants more, there is no law with ambition it is appetite driven. Young ambitions ladder is to be helped up each step and after reaching the next step the next level, ambition drives the spirit to turn its back on the one that helped him get there. It is demon that is embedded in ones soul, once the demon is wrought in the metal of a soul it can not be ignored. It becomes a part of the soul a driven emotion, with no end in sight, it is pure and consequential. Ambition is the reflection of a dream and trying to impose it to become a true reality. William Shakespeare in Macbeth displays the great ambition and drive in the human spirit through metaphorical writings that illustrates philosophical reasoning that applies to modern generations in the world today.
Today the world is has no lack of starved ambition, it’s a driving force used in today’s society. Regular citizens that climb over each others backs to get the higher role to get the higher salary. People that waste their lives gunning for the next big break, the dark side of it is gang members murdering others to climb their way to the top. Tony Montana in Scarface played by Al Pacino raises awareness of immigrants in the 1980s coming to America and promoting the distribution of illegal narcotics. Macbeth and Tony fell to their fate from the top of the ladder from which ambition brought them. Macbeth a most loyal subject and kinsman was wrought by the ambition of Lady Macbeth and evil witches that reinforced the thoughts of ambition that had already existed. For Macbeth to become king it was an undertaking task that would mean Macbeth’s soul and turned out to be a life ridden with guilt. At the very bottom of it all is where both these men had started, Macbeth a 
fierce and loyal soldier that had no control of his free will and allowed outside forces to decide his decisions and actions. Tony just off the boat from Cuba was driven by the illusion that being a drug lord would set him on top of the world. Murder and material would drive Macbeth and Tony to climb their ambitions ladder to the point where they were on top of the ladder and had no where to go but down. Scarface was a film based on the true happenings and I would say is still true in the world today. Macbeth as loyal as he was he was rapt withal whenever he was rewarded for serving Scotland, it took the evil spirited ambition of Lady Macbeth to toil Macbeth to killing Duncan and every threat around him including his ever more loyal friend Banquo. Macbeth was driven to his fate by the prophecies that initiated is unruly and ruthless fight to become a fearful tyrant. Tony Montana started at the bottom as just an enforcer for cocaine deals but his vast ambition drove him to a terror of murder and betrayal that sent Montana to the top of the world. “Okay, here’s the story. I come from the gutter. I know that. I got no education… but that’s okay. I know the street, and I’m making all the right connections. With the right woman, there’s no stopping me. I could go right to the top.” Once on top, Montana wanted more but by his own ambition was taken out by his enemies. Macbeth fell just as Montana did, by his hated enemies. Macduff a great enemy of Macbeth ended his reign making the witches prophecies come true. No man born of a woman shall harm Macbeth, fear the thane of Fife, and Macbeth shall rule until the Birnam forest Shakespeare’s plays not only showed today’s world of ambition they were a popular plot for many other of his text plays and one of my absolute favourites, Julius Caesar.
Julius Caesar and Macbeth both met their fate by ambition. Ambition to be the best and greatest ruthless tyrants that ever lived. I think Shakespeare is a very intelligent and famous writer if he was able to produce 
such plays. Julius Caesar is by far my favourite play, Macbeth is right close behind. I love a story of a low time average guy, who is driven for a goal to become the greatest ruler of all and then falls into his fate by his own means. In these plays either death finds the hero, or life turns them into a villain because you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Possibly one of my favourite quotes of all time from the Dark Knight. Caesar was the most ambitious man in Rome, ambition from which Caesar fell. It was for the future direction of Rome that Caesar’s enemies felt compelled to take him out in cold blood from a dagger. Caesar had it all, a throne from which he was put there by God, even going as to saying that he was Rome’s chosen God. Macbeth had the desire to fulfill his ambition that had already existed. ”I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself, and falls on th’other….” (I,vii,26-28). Caesar had the same idea “For my part, I had rather be the first man among these fellows than the second man in Rome.” Macduff and the thanes of Scotland felt the same way that Macbeth would turn Scotland into an unjust and tyrannical country that would run on the chaos of Macbeth. Macduff is much like Brutus, Macduff was concerned that Macbeth would change Scotland into a fearful nation, in which Macbeth did, Brutus was feared that Rome would impose to fly in the same direction. It was the ambition of Caesar and Macbeth that brought them to the top but it was the ambition that surrounded them that brought them down. Ambition is part of the human spirit I find it in myself everyday, it is a demon that consumes me, overruns me, and troubles me in my life.
Ambition and drive are the forces and the cause of this great feeling to be on top of the world, but no one has deemed a name for this part of the spirit. I call it the beast. The beast eats away, and it keeps eating driven by it own appetite, it stops at nothing until I am nothing. Sitting here typing with so much on the line. I need the ambition to propel this final essay to the highest mark achievable, if I don’t it means nothing less than failure. My future and hope is gone, but the beast is still there, the beast cannot be removed washed off, scrubbed off, or destroyed. The beast pulls the spirit under and makes it feel like I’m drowning, the only way to the surface is to continue forth to write the best essay in this entire classroom. The beast never lets go, it holds on to my mind filling it with more metaphors and more writings. The beast cannot be escaped or evaded, it feasts on this soul. I have tried several occasion to ignore it, to fight it, and escape to only find that the beast finds myself and pulls the soul back under until I have the ambition to drive it right back up to the surface. The beast never sleeps, so I cannot sleep. Even when I finish this final exam the beast will still be with me.
Ambition is a sickening tool used in the human soul to continue to find the next opportunity to the top. Whatever this ambition is called it never leaves, in today’s society it can make nations powerful, it made Tony Montana, Macbeth and Julius Caesar powerful, just average people powerful. But enemies with just as much ambition made these people fall by their own ambition, and as I continue to think, to write and be pushed up to surface I know one other student sitting in their chair doing the same is going to make me fall upon my own ambition as well. When that person does write a better essay than me, gets a higher mark than me, I will feel as if I have failed and fallen to the ground but the beast will be there to pick me right back up so I can do it all over again next year.
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