Macbeth: Ambition & Guilt

Shakespeare's Macbeth is a study in unchecked ambition. From the moment the witches greet him as 'Thane of Cawdor', a seed is planted. Ambition, once nourished by Lady Macbeth's cold rhetoric, quickly outgrows conscience. Blood imagery threads the play. Macbeth's 'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?' is answered by Lady Macbeth's later sleepwalking: 'Out, damned spot!' Guilt, Shakespeare suggests, is the shadow ambition casts.