Ambition, the desire or determination to achieve your greatest goals, or to conquer your greatest fears. In today’s world, Ambition is a key part to achieving whatever you desire. Ambition can be used in many ways, It can be used as a gift for others, or as a transformation tool for yourself. However, once many people get set on their goals that they want to achieve, they end up getting lost in the depth of their ambition and this could lead them onto having a loss of humanity and a caring for others emotions. The four pieces that I will be discussing today are all linked together by ambition and how it is shown throughout the pieces, whether that be negative or positive. These four pieces are Macbeth, Ozymandias, Gattaca and The Greatest Showman.
In 1606, the play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare presents negative ambition. Macbeth during the play shows a massive amount of ambition to achieve his goal but as the play goes on, his morality becomes unbalanced by his ambition and this makes his ambition very dangerous to others. Macbeth’s goal during this play was to become King and his ambition would help him achieve this. However, when his ambition became too much, he lost all control over his actions. This led onto multiple murders and visions of daggers. Symbolism became one of the many leading themes in this play bringing us “A dagger of the mind, a false creation” to show us a sign. This sign represents how too little morality mixed with ambition can become threatening to Macbeth himself and to others around him. Throughout the play, symbolism as a theme shows us that when ambition and morality are unbalanced, it can lead onto many different, dangerous outcomes, but when they become even, it can bring out the positive side in all situations.
Ozymandias is a poem written by Percy Shelley that shows yet again, a form of negative ambition. Ozymandias was egotistical and thought of himself as the “king of kings”. He desired power and worship and gave himself a mighty stool to stand on to place him above the rest. However, what he doesn’t realise is that once he inevitably passes on, his power will lose all meaning and his life will be worth a grain of sand. Ozymandias during his reign pondered over his accomplishments commanding everyone to do what he pleases. By focusing so much on the present and how he looked in the moment, he forgot how others would look at him in the future and whether they would see him as a leader or a failure. On the ruined statue in the middle of the desert, a quote from Ozymandias says “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”, this shows how self absorbed Ozymandias was and how he didn’t care for others emotions. When it says look on my works, he is talking about what he had accomplished, but when visiting that statue now, all there was too see was a long stretched desert. This shows the theme of his egotistical, self-absorbed nature.
Andrew Niccol’s film Gattaca shows a form of positive ambition through the character Vincent. Vincent was known as a ‘God Child’ or an ‘invalid’, someone who wasn’t genetically perfect, whereas Vincent’s brother Anton, was genetically perfect. Anton throughout his life, had everything handed to him and didn’t have to work for anything. Vincent however, had to work for everything. Because of this setback, Vincent had a spark of ambition and started to work his way closer to his goal of completing anything a genetically perfect person can do, in particular, going to outer space. Vincent and Anton as young children played a game called Chicken. The aim was to swim out to sea as far as they could until one of them turned back. For years upon years, the first to turn was Vincent and Anton began to win over and over again. One day, Anton and Vincent decided to have their competition once more to prove who was superior. This game carried on until Anton gave up and he asked how Vincent kept on going. Vincent in return said “I never saved anything for the swim back”. This quote alone shows the sacrifices made by Vincent just to get to the stage he was at. Symbolism is the main theme in this film and swimming is one of those symbols. Swimming acts as a barrier for Vincent and in order to conquer it, Vincent has to show ambition and break down this barrier by beating his genetically perfect brother.
The Greatest Showman was a film released in 2017 which portrayed positive ambition through the character Phineas Taylor Barnum (P.T. Barnum). Based in the early 1800’s, P.T. Barnum was just a young boy growing up with nothing. From a young age, he found that he had a gift for being a showman. After attempting many jobs, he ended up looping around back to the start, without a job. P.T. Barnum then decided that it was time to show his true talent. With his little amount of money, he bought a museum which would later turn into his show for unique acts. This would be called the Barnum & Bailey Circus. The circus took the world by storm and became famous all over the world. He went from having to steal food, to meeting the Queen of England. Mid way through the film, the building which once hosted the show burned down in a fire. But even with this setback, he still found a way to make the circus great again. But although P.T. Barnum’s ambition was strong, he couldn’t do this alone. With the help of the acts and his partner, they turned the circus around and made it greater than ever showing that the “Impossible comes true.” For the first show back, P.T. Barnum wore his signature top hat which represents the main symbol in this film. In the final performance of the film, the top hat passes around all of the acts and ends up in the hands of his partner. This scene shows how not just P.T. Barnum shows ambition, but the whole show does to pick it up from the rubble to make it great again for all to see.
In both Macbeth and Ozymandias, we are shown forms of negative ambition. We learn that ambition is dangerous without the balancing influence of morality and that No matter what we achieve, It will always eventually come to nothing. These two texts are linked by the two main characters desires. They both desire power. Macbeth desires the position of king at the start mainly for the power that comes with it and Ozymandias desires power because he believes that he is more worthy than anyone else and needs something to prove it. In both Gattaca and The Greatest Showman, we are shown forms of positive ambition. We learn that human ambition can be a positive drive when there are challenges to overcome and that no matter how invisible your vision is, anything is possible. These two texts are linked by the two main characters challenges that they need to overcome. Vincent’s challenge is to prove that anyone Invalid can do what anyone else can and P.T. Barnum’s challenge is to build something great out of nothing.
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