Psychological Manipulation In Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Psychological manipulation is known as mind control is a type of influence that tries to change behavior or impression of others through deceptive, uncertain and destructive techniques. Manipulation can happen when you interact with someone by them influencing your mind or maybe them convincing you to believe anything they want too. The Novel 1984 by George Orwell’s is a dystopian novel where Winston Smith juggles with the brutality in Oceania a society where there is public mind control, government surveillance and zero citizens right with the watchful big brother.

Physiological manipulation is one of the main themes shown in 1984 throughout the novel they elaborate to us that big brother is the central leader of Oceania and he’s in charge of everything. And they also advertise “big brother is watching you” the police constantly make sure that each individual is not capable of thinking for themselves.

Doublethink is a method used by the party to manipulate individuals into believing them. When caught doing anything against the rules you would be taken to the ministry of love where they manipulate you to believe the party’s words through pain and torture.

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“War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength” this quote shows of the doublethink method where they party tries to make you believe “war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength” when it really isn’t. Our society is being affected by psychological manipulation in today’s society adult, teens and even children get physically manipulated through multiple ways that we occur daily and we might not even know it this is through the tv we watch, the music we listen to and even the news we pay attention to daily.

Children that start watching tv at a young age each tend to start acting the way a character talks, dresses and acts. Teenagers are sometimes influenced by music videos, movies, video games, and magazines. Adults are sometimes most commonly influence through newspapers “facts” of unfortunate events happening around the world. We are influenced to put our trust in politicians of their campaigns or convincing speeches.

Manipulation is also shown in Shakespeare’s book hamlet by a Machiavellian character named Claudius in act 4 scene 7 Claudius is trying to convince Laertes that he is not responsible for his father’s death although we know if Claudius wouldn’t have killed hamlets father know of this would be happening. Claudius lays a guilt trip on Laertes by telling him if he does nothing to encounter his father’s death it will prove he never loved his father Claudius is using this moment of weakness to manipulate Laertes into killing hamlet since this is the moment he’s been waiting for. Claudius has Manipulated many of the characters in the story from the very beginning it was never specified whether he actually manipulated Gertrude to participating in the death of King Hamlet. but he does indeed manipulate hamlets two friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into spying on Hamlet and getting him to onto the boat to leave. He also manipulated Gertrude into making her think that he loves Hamlet and wants what’s best for him everything Claudius says or does is to benefit himself.

In today’s society we understand that manipulating and lying is just wrong but in Shakespeare’s tragedies, they were accepted but also expected due to many of the characters manipulating others. whether you are Hitler, El Chapo, Donald Trump or any character in hamlet those who manipulate and deceive others only end up in their own downfall.The book 1984 and Hamlet are similar to our Society because we are forced to believe in news that may not be true some people manipulate others to get the top, in fact, the government can monitor our phone calls but unless your spending your life in a cabin there’s no way the government won’t have information about you stored away which means we are all Winston Smith in our society.