Human relationships are complex, having the capacity to bring both prosperity and tragedy into a person’s world. Manipulation is one variable that influences a relationship. William Shakespeare must have been aware of the powerful force of manipulation when he wrote The Tragedy of Macbeth. In the five acts chronicling Macbeth’s epic rise and fall, Shakespeare uses conflict between the characters to reveal the commanding role manipulation plays in human relationships.
From the concluding scenes of Act I, Shakespeare crafts a deeply complex relationship between Lady Macbeth and her husband. A disheveled Macbeth is reluctant to carry through with the plan to assassinate King Duncan. Lady Macbeth confronts her husband, manipulating him by questioning his masculinity. She thunders, “When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man.” (I.7.50-52) Lady Macbeth insinuates
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Macbeth, believing Banquo and his son are the only ones standing in the way of a long and prosperous reign, hires two murders to kill his best friend. Macbeth manipulates the murders, who are at first unwilling to commit the crime, by convincing them that Banquo is the enemy. In Act III, Macbeth whispers “That it was he, in the times past, which held you so under fortune, which you thought had been our innocent self....And are you so gospeled to pray for this good man and for this issue, whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave and beggared yours forever?” (3.1.85-86,98-101) Macbeth insinuates that Banquo is responsible for the men’s poverty and misfortune. Because of the power structure that existed in medieval Scotland, it is entirely feasible that the men would have believed that a powerful and successful general could be responsible for their miserable circumstances. Shakespeare again addresses the notion that people can be manipulated into committing egregious acts of