Comparing Manipulation To Madness In Shakespeare's Macbeth And Veronica Roth
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Manipulation to Madness In 1774, Edmund Burke said, “ the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse”, a phrase which here means, when someone is given great power or opportunities for authority they are more likely to use it for personal gain. This can be said for both Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Veronica Roth’s character Jeanine Matthews from Divergent. The desperate nature of these two women is what has driven them to their ultimate defeat. This desperation appears to have arisen from their powerful manipulative abilities, as well as their strong ambition for power and their detachment from the people close to them to achieve their social statuses. It is said that “manipulation filled with good intent is a blessing” (T.F. Modge) but when it is used for immoral purposes it…show more content… Lady Macbeth was so confident (in the beginning) that her plan would work that, when asked about the possibility of failure, she answered, “We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking-place, /And we’ll not fail (I.vii.59-61). She does not regard a chance of filing because she continues to talk of the plan and all the steps they have to follow. Jeanine Matthews believed her plan would go smooth as well. She thought her plan was so full proof and well thought out that she was willing to die to keep it from being stopped. In the final scenes of the film, Tris shows her determination in shutting down the simulation Jeanine developed, but she simply replies “I admire you, willing to die for what you believe…but so am I”(Winslet, Divergent). She wanted her plan to be a success and did not care whether or not she was around to see it succeed. The ambition of these two antagonists forced them to put too much faith in their goals for power, which led to them to undercompensating for people who were apposed to their