What is the essential moral issue of the play? Explain how sheer ambition turns a man into a murderer.
The way that I see the play is that there are many moral issues. The first and possibly the most obvious is murder. Macbeth could have avoided so much trouble had he not murdered. He first kills the king. After this, he takes center stage. He has accomplished his first goal. But, he freaks out. He starts thinking that everybody is a threat to his power and that they know what he did (the result of an unrepented sin) Eventually, the people get fed up with him. They rebel against Macbeth. This leads to his own murder. The second issue is witchcraft. Had Macbeth listended to Banquo's wise advise, he might not have been sucked into Satans evil plan. Another issue is greed. It was his greed that made Macbeth want to believe the witches in the first place. Believing the witches because of greed led to his demise.
Now, the second part of the question was a bit more challenging, but I finally figured it out. There is nothing wrong with ambition! It is ambitious for me to want to go to college, it is ambitious to believe that God would want any thing to do with mere humans. Is this evil? Does this turn people into murderers? Of course not. It is only when ambition is accompanied by greed and other evil thoughts does it take a turn for the worse. This was Macbeths downfall, Greed and Witchcraft.
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