Sin In Macbeth

Words: 512
Pages: 3

Sins have an odd way of transcending time, culture, and place; like history is compelled to repeat itself, so is sin. The passages regarding The Fall in Genesis III and Shakespeare’s Macbeth prove this argument precisely. Almost each act and scene within the play conspires with The Fall. Both are filled with temptation, persuasion, manipulation, and major consequences.
“If you keep going to the barber shop, you’ll eventually get a haircut.” Every human experiences temptation due to numerous things, but a common factor is the “scarcity principle” which means we desire things that are rare and scarce over things we have an abundance to. This is due to a competitive urge to stay in control. In The Fall in Genesis III Adam and Eve were given an abundance of food that they were allowed to eat but there was one tree that they were never to eat from. There was only one of those trees in the Garden of Eden and God was in control of what they ate. Sure, at first they didn’t pay much attention to it but when the serpent pointed out that it was scarce and forbidden as well as the fact that it held a power that they didn’t have they yearned for it more than
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To manipulate is “to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one's own advantage”. Persuasion and manipulation can play hand in hand. Persuasion can be a tool that can be utilized to play manipulation, just like a bow and a fiddle. In The Fall, the serpent used persuasive argumentation about how amazing eating the fruit would be as a manipulation tool to get Eve to try it and share some with Adam. In Macbeth, the witches manipulated Macbeth to sin by subtle persuasion. They literally dangled part of the future in front of him and then made it disappear. Both forces of evil (the serpent and the three witches) were able to get what they wanted by using both persuasion and