Macbeth Paper

Manipulation has been a part of the human culture for as long as anyone can remember. Manipulation can be ones worst nightmare for the fact that it is not only easy to be manipulated by others, but it is also easy to be manipulated by your own self. When someone wants something so bad, and is told by others that it will happen, you can have it; eventually, you can’t help but think what you can do to get it faster. For example, in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, Macbeth shows that manipulation and persuasion will lead to one’s fate. In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare portrays the witches manipulating Macbeth to believe that he will be king. Early on Macbeth has already been hooked on the withes prophecies and manipulations by begging for more, “Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more” (Macbeth, I, III). By telling the witches that he wants to hear more he is showing that he has already begun to be manipulated. Also, Macbeth is showing that he is interested in the acts he must take to be king instead of allowing fate to take control. Proving that Macbeth has already begun to be manipulated by his misinterpretations, Wayne Booth reinforces this idea in his article “Shakespeare’s Tragic Villain”. He states, “The first of these, the witches and their prophecy, might seem in no way mitigate his responsibility, since he chooses willfully to misinterpret what they say” (Booth, 4). Macbeth is so shocked and overwhelmed about the witches’ prophecy, that he misinterprets how to become king. If Macbeth would have thought that he would become king by waiting and allowing fate to take control than he wouldn’t have misinterpreted what the witches had to say, but when he heard something he has wanted so badly for so long, he was willing to do anything in his power to make it happen. By only listening to parts of what the witches had prophesized, Macbeth has misinterpreted what the witches have told him and manipulated himself. Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to act upon