NCEA 1.8 – Significant Connections. Ambition

Ambition is one of the very things that make us human. It gives us our desires, our reasons to work. But ambition comes on many forms and colours. Everyones ambition also has different driving forces and varying people that help influence them, for better or worse and can have a effect whether they succeed with the ambition.

Gattaca is a film that betrays one of the most powerful and well known shade of ambition. The film is set in a future where advance genetic modification on humans is present where the genetically modified ones are more accepted into society and are known as valid while the un modified ones are less accepted and are known as In-valids. The main character Vincent is a Invaild but has the ambition to go to space as a astronaught which something that is looked upon as impossible for a Invaild. Even his dad tells him to “think more realistically“. But Vincents ambition doesn’t change course and his main drive is that he’s more than his genes and his friend Jerome helps him along the way.  One example is in the climax of the film when Jerome (who can not walk) has to climb the helix stairs in order to preserve Vincent identity. The stair shaped as a helix provides much significance as the both Vincents hunger for his ambition and Jermoes help. our genes, and our genes are individual parts of our DNA, and DNA is in the shape of helix. And Jerome here climbing the stairs is embodying what Vincents had to do all of his life, the desperation for wanting to conquor his genetics trying to make to make it to the top of the stairs before someone finds his real identity. This pure dedication to his dream is why Vincent and Jerome succeed in their ambition.

 Macbeth has a very different shade of ambition as Macbeth drive and Influences of his ambition is very different than the one from Gattaca . The ambition that Macbeth betrays throughout the play is to be king but in the beginning has no desire to become king and even the witches come upon him and give him the prophecies Macbeth presents ”If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Without my stir.”  which is Macbeth saying that if it’s his destiny to become king, it will come to him naturally without his doing which clearly says his ambition is not to be king. But when Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth about the witches prophecies she becomes obsessed in the idea of Macbeth becoming king and convinces him to pursue this and how he should go about getting to king “Look like th’ innocent flower,But be the serpent under ’t” .Macbeth’s ultimate influence to act on his ambition is fueled actually more by Lady Macbeth than Macbeth himself as Macbeth at multiple points during the play wanted to back down from from becoming king for multiple reasons but as soon as Lady Macbeth arrives he once again follows this Ambition. Even when Macbeth begins to back pedal before the murder of Duncan Lady Macbeth says this passage .  “What beast was’t, then,That made you break this enterprise to me?” which is talking about how he is a coward and he’s broken his promise, Macbeth feels guilty and then accepts to go ahead. Lady Macbeth then once again convinces Macbeth to proceed with this ambition. . This leads Macbeth down a dangerous path. Because this ambition is mostly influenced and driven by Lady Macbeth, his heart is not with it causing him to spiral out of control and leads to his downfall.


Harry Potter and the order of the Pheonix shares many dark properties in the story like Macbeth but the colour of the ambition is completely diffrent. Harrys ambition is to teach himself and his friends how to defend them selves against the dark arts as their new teacher refuses to believe the dark lord is back and believes is just a show. Harry and his friends brake many rules and take incredible risks in doing so. “If she refuses to teach us then we need someone who will” which is said by one of Harrys dearest friends Hermione who shows her surrport for Harry while hes unsure whether its the right thing to do and infers that he should teach them as he is one withe the experience and someone they will follow. This gives Harry the confidence to go up start teaching the others. But one the main drives that makes Harry want to improve the others magic abilities is because he knows how powerfull the dark lord is and he knows that he be coming for him soon so it is important that the others know how to defend them selves. This is proven at the begging of the film when he and his host brother are attacked by a pair of dementors and he managers to get rid of them but they do harm to the brother. Although the host brother is not a magican is does occur to him that he can not defend all of his friends by himself and to protect the ones he loves he must teach them what he knows. And although while they do get caught this does not deter Harry or his freinds and because he’s not just doing this for himself but for others as well the colour of his ambition is completely different than Macbeths and his drive for this ambition shines brighter than Macbeths which is why he succseeds in his ambition.


Emment in the book Nyxia main drive and influencing factors come from his family and friends which proves to be one of the most powerful ambitions there is. The book is about 10 teens who that have been chosen by “Babel” to go a newly discovered planet and perform some tasks and in return the will get paid millions. However the twist is that only a certain number of people can go. Winners get paid. Losers get a participation small sum. “You get in there and fight, Emmett. Be worthy. Not in their eyes, but in yours…When they knock you down, and they will, don’t you quit on me. ” His dad is one of Emmets main surrporters and influences on his ambition and is the one who makes him fight the hardest. His dad says this when his odds for succeeding are small. But this encouragement from someone who he cares about is the thing that keeps him going. “I am, Money won’t fix that”.This is said by one of his dearest Kaya who explains to Emmet that she is not here for the money but to explore the new planet. This changes Emmets whole perspective on the competition. Before most of his concern like most of the competitors was the money but Kaya changes this and instead he begins facing each challenge with a new pride and he is able to take much more of the pain in each of the challenges as he’s doing this for a much more deeper purpose which is to do this for his whole family and he begins to stick to his morals. Before he used to think that to survive in this competition you “Face the black hole and be destroyed” or “be the black hole and be the destroyer.”. The black hole here is reference to what some of the other characters are like, something that must take from others and leave a destructive path behind them, as black holes often do causes chaos and do take from other objects. But he realises that he can be more than this and he is not what Babel shapes him into. This is why although on the brink of failing he still manages to successes because of some of the people that were most close to him changing his ambition from a grey to a rainbow of colours.

The texts above show us how our ambition is not our alone ours, and although we our the ones that must work towards it our ambition is not always souly ours to claim as many other people and /or things come and help us shape and paint our ambition. These people or things can both bring the better in our ambition, like Kaya influence of Emmet, or it can bring out the worst in us , like Lady Macbeths manipulation like status on Macbeth. But this shouldn’t be something that should detour you from outside forces on your ambition because even in the likes of Macbeth it makes our ambition more rich in colour and often much strongly than it was once before which may be the difference from achieving your ambition or not.

One Comment

  1. Achievement Achievement with Merit Achievement with Excellence
    • Explain significant connection(s) across texts, using supporting evidence.
    • Convincingly explain significant connection(s) across texts, using supporting evidence.
    • Perceptively explain significant connection(s) across texts, using supporting evidence.

    Excellence

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