Ambition; the strong desire to achieve. This drive is either what leads us to our own successes or our own downfalls. Often it is influenced by your personal morality, what you believe is right and wrong. This influence can be what powers the ambition or it can be twisted and then forgotten. Throughout an array of four texts, ozymandias, gatacca, Macbeth and how to train your dragon, each shows in a different way how morality has affected the characters own ambitions.
Ozymandias is a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poem tells us that this Ozymandias character was extremely ambitious which lead him to become a rather powerful figure; however in the end all that was left of him was a damaged statue. “on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies”. This quote explains one of Ozymandias’ statues that has now become meaningless. The description of the broken statue is a metaphor for the remaining memories of him. Just like the statue, hardly any recollections of him survive. In the end, the strong drive of ambition to become a supreme ruler lead him to believe he was worthier than others. By thinking this he therefor lost sight of his morality. His ambition was driven by his desire to be worthier than others and morality was lost. The message that this poem tells us is that no matter whether your ambitions are lead by good or evil morals, everything you achieve will eventually become meaningless or forgotten.
In the movie Gattaca the main character Vincent was also driven by immense ambition, just as Ozymandias was. He had to be in order to overcome the challenges he faced to achieve his goal of becoming an astronaut; however the difference between the two is that one goal was achieved with better morality. Vincent never lost sight of who he was while trying to succeed. Gattaca is set in a modern period of time where your genetic make-up determines your worth as a person. Vincent is put at a disadvantage as he is genetically inferior because he is a ‘natural’ born. These limitations, that Vincent was born with, became one of the driving forces to achieve his dream. He put everything he had, both physically and mentally, into succeeding just as he said himself – “I never saved anything for the swim back”. Throughout the movie the image of an escalator or a staircase is often shown. This has been used as a symbol of Vincent’s own ambition. It shows that one must never stop moving forward and never give up in order to achieve their goal. Vincent has proven that ambition can be a positive drive if morals are not forgotten.
Macbeth ,however, a character from Shakespeare’s play ‘Macbeth’ proved that when morals are lost ambition can be a dangerous influence. In the beginning of the play Macbeth was well respected as he was Thane of Cawdor however during the play his ambitions to become King eventually killed him. Macbeth had a goal to become King but in order to achieve this he had to murder King Duncan. He had lost sight of any good morals he had in order to succeed, and because of this he lost his own mind. After he’d done the deed of killing the king Macbeth saw a bloody dagger in front of him. “art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation” This dagger that he saw was not real. It was a symbol of the deterioration of his mind. The guilt from his ambitious actions caused this image. Macbeth’s ambition overpowered the importance of human morality and that destroyed him. Both Macbeth and Vincent achieved their goals in the end but because of Macbeth’s absence of morality he destroyed himself. The difference between the two characters has proven that morality is a major factor of not just achieving your goal, but saving your own sanity.
In the movie ‘how to train your dragon’ it is brought to light how ambition (when balanced with morals) doesn’t have to lead to the loss of ones mind , as shown in Macbeth. How to train your dragon is a movie about a boy, Hiccup, who has grown up in a world where dragons are thought of as the enemy. Traditionally dragons are thought of as a symbol of evil and at the beginning of the movie this is how they are portrayed. In order to prove to everyone that he was brave Hiccup shot and injured a dragon on his own, however he could not bring himself to kill this innocent creature. “I wouldn’t kill him because he looked as frightened as I was. I looked at him and I saw myself”. Overtime this dragon, who he’d named toothless, became very important to him. Hiccup’s instinct to save this dragon was what powered his ambition to save the rest of them, from his own people. His own morals were the start to his ambitions. In this movie dragons had not been a symbolism of evil, they had been a symbolism of the misunderstood and how humans seem to turn the things we don’t understand into monsters. Hiccup uncovered this misconception and overcame it with his ambition. This major factor is what makes Hiccup and Macbeth completely different. Hiccup was able to use his morals as a driving force to success whereas Macbeth’s morals were the thing that destroyed him.
These four texts have proven how important the balance of ambition and morality is. For some, like Ozymandias and Macbeth, it easy to forget these morals and let ambition be the driving influence to success. On the other hand some people have the ability to balance these two forces, like Vincent in Gattaca, or even let morality be the reason they have that ambition, like Hiccup. We all have ambitions but often we forget how easy it is to lose sight of what we believe is right and wrong while trying to achieve. I believe these texts have been able to emphasize the importance of the role that morality plays in your own ambition.
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