Book Thief & Macbeth Comparison

Macbeth & The Book Thief:
A Comparison between Ambition present in the Novels

In comparing Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Zusak’s Book Thief, though the books deal with different time eras, characters and even language styles, there are some striking similarities between the themes in both novels. The themes are evident throughout both novels, these themes give a better understanding of the author’s message he wants to portray to his audience. Both books show ambition effectively in many situations. In Macbeth we see how far one man will go to see a goal accomplished and achieve his ultimatum. In the Book Thief we witness a girl with the ambition to learn how to read, and she will do anything to ensure she keeps learning. Ambition is shown in many other ways, another example in Macbeth is when a character makes a goal out of spite. The goal will not bring happiness to the individual until it is accomplished. In the Book Thief a Jewish man trains hard and dreams about fighting his arch nemesis. The motivation behind this goal is the spite that he possesses against the man that ruined his life. Ambition is in our everyday lives people constantly make goals and try to accomplish them if it wasn’t here nobody would have anything to strive for and lots of people wouldn’t be living up to their expectations. There are many ways that ambition is portrayed in good ways and in bad. Both were present in Macbeth and the Book Thief. Both novels have characters that show their ambition on the pursuit of a goal. In Macbeth the main character Macbeth is promised a future of good outlook by three witches. The witches tell him that one day he will be king. Instead of Macbeth waiting for these good fortunes to come to him, Macbeth becomes ambitious and starts to toy around with the idea of killing the king thinking it will bring happiness to him and his wife. Macbeth could not deal with the anticipation anymore and took matters into his own hands because he thinks it is the