Oshiro 1

Dana Oshiro

Mrs. Davenport

English 9 Honors

29 March 2017

Ambition Has Been Left Guilty For Too Long

Standing with a gun to your head, who do you blame for pulling the trigger? Additionally,

what makes a gun dangerous? Not to go into gun control or anything, but are guns inherently

evil? Can a gun independently direct itself and pull its own trigger? A gun cannot do any of

that. Ambition is a gun. And like a gun, ambition is not something that controls people; it

cannot make people do anything. It cannot make people commit acts against morality or with it.

Ambition is not the culprit of humanitys demise, or rise, but its humanitys own choices.

Ambition does not act; it does not breathe; it does not think. In 1994, one of the most

memorable Olympic scandals occurred when Nancy Kerrigan, a gold-medal favorite ice skater,

was clubbed in the knee as she left practice in Detroit. The attack was arranged by the ex-

husband of Tonya Harding, another Olympic hopeful, causing Kerrigan to immense pain and

nearly being bumped from chances on the Olympic team. Manipulating ambition never made

the pair intentionally attempt to maim Kerrigan for a bit of glory. This was the Hardings

heinous choice to commit such a crime against Kerrigan to win the Olympics. In my own life,

and Ill bet yours, we have seen people cheat their way in games, sports, schools, everywhere

just to receive a false sense of validation for their victory. They will often do less of what is

required or bend rules to ensure that they will succeed; and when someone looks off of a test or

shoves others to the side to win, you blame the person and their decisions, not their desire to win

because everyone has that. Ambition does not make people do anything.

Ambition is simply a weapon that gives people the ability to satisfy their inner demands.
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In Macbeth, after encountering the Weird Sisters, Macbeth is tortured by visions of his

ascendancy to the throne, but he is distraught as he knows the cost to elevate his status. The then

Thane of Cawdor even had doubts of his plans during Act 1 when he feels he has no resentments

towards the king; Macbeth even fears how God will punish him in the afterlife and the angels

will look upon his crime and alarm everyone in the night, yet the nervous thane still tentatively

executed the slaughter. Using his ambitions, Macbeth was able to muster the courage to abandon

his beliefs and loyalties and murder the king. The soon-to-be-king so desperately needed the

power that his ambitions became his priority, that he would use this motivation to escape his

apprehensions. His deep, dark desires fueled his ability to meet his goals.

On another note, from all this reading, we have witnessed the dark side of ambition, or

should I say the downside. Weve come to believe ambition is this great force which pushes and

pull us to yield to our unconscious inhibitions. All weve read is wrong. Ambition, while its

certainly a tool to aid in success, it is inanimate without the actions of a user. What I mean by

this is that ambition can sit there, harmless, useless, but a persons choice to pick it up, aim it,

and fire it is entirely in control of how he/she decides to act. In A Separate Peace, Gene knew

his thoughts of betrayal towards Finny were irrational and wrong. Gene knew if he acted, he

would lose his friendship with Finny, which he treasured tremendously. Gene didnt seem to

care as he allowed himself to destroy Finny. Beyond all reason, Gene so badly wanted to be at

the top of his class that he sacrificed one of his greatest possessions. Gene could not have acted

on his ambitions, but he chose to anyways. People choose what they do, and if their desires

contradict their beliefs, it is completely possible to not act on them. The problem is not

ambition, but the people and their corrupted selection of actions.

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