manipulation at its best

Manipulation has existed in the world for as long as we have. It is with manipulation that we are able to obtain what we want in life. Granted some are far more successful that others, while some try and live a more honest life. However, it is inevitable that we use manipulation at one point in our lives. While at the core manipulation is still manipulation, the methods in which you can bring about manipulation are gargantuan. It can be as simple as pouting your lip and putting up a sad front in order to convince your parent to get you whatever whim you have at the moment. Perhaps it can be something as drastic as playing with someone’s emotions, from fear to love, so that they will follow your every command. Or possibly using something as simple as your words in order to hypnotize others into your control. We might not always result to the use of manipulation as a means to get what we want, but at some point in our lives we will fall into the temptation of manipulation.

If one can be so adapt at controlling the emotions of others, he can become as powerful as a man can possibly be. Prospero was a man so clever with his words that he was able to control those around him by using their emotions against them. Through his ability to speak in a way that was beneficial to his will, he was able to control the emotions and actions of his daughter Miranda, his spirit helper Ariel, and his slave Caliban.

Prospero used manipulation in order to cause the storm that brought his enemies from the ship to be cast ashore. However, he didn’t do this task completely alone. With the help of his spirit helper, Ariel, he was able to execute his plan accordingly, and it was through his clever and manipulative words that he is able to bend Ariel to his will. Prospero reminds Ariel of how he found him imprisoned in a tree with his “groans of ever angry bears. It was a torment did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts to lay upon the damned, which Sycorac could not undo again. It was [his] art, when [he] arrived and heard [him], that made gape the pine and let [him] out” (36). By retelling the story of their past he was able to make Ariel’s emotions fresh within his mind. It caused a refreshed sense of gratefulness and also a great deal of guilt for complaining about helping the one who had freed him from such a grave fate. With the fresh sense of emotions running through him, Ariel was once again in complete and full control under Prospero. Prospero’s threat of re-imprisonment for disobedience and Promise of freedom for obedience also caused Ariel to fall under his spell.

Prospero was also able to manipulate his own daughter to see him as the epitome of good by telling her the stories of their past and how they came about to the island. He told her about how his brother, her uncle, had wanted to be the one in complete control as the Duke of Milan that he set them out to see on “a rotten carcass of a butt, not rigged, nor tackle, sail, nor mast. There they [hoisted them] to cry to th’ sea that roared to [them] to sigh to th’ winds whose pity, sighing back again, did [them] but loving wrong” (24). He told the story in such a manner that it would appeal to her sympathies. It would cause her to feel a great sense of gratitude for her father that had suffered through the sea and protected her so that they may reach the safety of land. Thus, by gaining further sympathy and gratitude, he was able to exceed further control over her.  He appeared to his daughter as the essence of good and her protector. This reverence towards her father served as fuel in his control over her.

Prospero was also able to manipulate Caliban into his servant by using the events of the past. Upon disobedience Prospero began to angrily go over their past. How Prospero had “used [him], filth as [he was], with human care, and lodged [him] in [his] own cell till [he] didst seek to violate the honor of [his] child” (42). He told him of how he treated him with such kindness yet he was horrible enough to try and abuse his daughter. By bringing up the past he was able to once again gain control of Caliban. The anger and passion in his words cause Caliban to recoil into submission, albeit a bit reluctantly. He was able to exert his power through his words and thus get what he wanted.

Just as The Party controlled Oceania through various types of manipulation, so did Prospero towards the people around him. By using the past to his advantage and using people’s emotions to assist him he was able to control them. Just as The Party altered the past in order to ensure that Big Brother remained as the supreme being that was always right.

Simply by changing your tone of voice and altering how you say things you can be given the opportunity to control others. It can be something as simple as getting a small object or as big as gaining a group of followers. It is through our words that we become powerful. Our words give us the ability to obtain what we want. It is with our words that we can manipulate others in order to make them feel or think what we want them to. If we are not careful we may fall into manipulation and never even know of it.