When people hear the word "pride", the range of connotations is wide: for some, pride means having confidence in one's ability to accomplish something or having high esteem of oneself. ; for others, pride is synonymous with arrogance and vanity. However, the question that arises is: what does pride actually mean? Pride is defined as a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction arising from one's own accomplishments. Knowing what pride means, it becomes much easier to understand how people become proud. People become proud when they have confidence, and they become confident when they achieve a goal. However, when someone accomplishes such a feat, they become extremely assertive and fall down. Feeling fulfilled gives a person a false sense of security and makes them conceited, believing they can accomplish anything. This belief is considered ambition, and in some ways it is, but it is a form of zeal that leads to failure. Therefore, when pride and arrogance corrupt ambition, destruction follows. In the tragedy Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth was very successful and is considered valiant and heroic; his achievements, mainly in war, earned him titles of nobility. After gaining the position of Thane of Cawdor (a very prestigious position), he wished to become King of Scotland, which shows Macbeth's great ambition. Until Macbeth wanted to become king, he had "pure" ambition, that is, one where he would do honest work to earn his position in society; however, corruption invaded his mind soon after, as evidenced by his thought that "the Prince of Cumberland... [was]... a step upon which... [he]... must fall, or else leap" (I, iv, 50...... middle of paper ...... pretty much ended his reign because everyone saw what hubris was doing to his judgment, so they took advantage of his overconfidence. Ultimately, an ambition that is contaminated by pride is one that leads to disaster Macbeth and Napoleon both started out with sound intentions, but because of their vanity, they both degraded to the lowest level of pride. society if one of them had not let pride interfere with ambition, they might have ended their affair successfully: both men could have exercised benign rule over their kingdoms. Although it is difficult to avoid corruption when striving to accomplish something, having tainted ambition is worse than having no ambition at all. Works cited “Napoleon Bonaparte History.com”. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web, May 13, 2014. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York, NY: Spark Publishing, 2003. Print.