“Unnatural Deeds Do Breed Unnatural Troubles”: The Supernatural and the Natural Order in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Macbeth In order to assimilate into the worlds of William Shakespeare’s most enthralling tragedies, entirely coherent atmospheres must be accommodated. Hamlet and Macbeth each introduce a spectrum of radical physical and metaphysical concepts which allow audiences the opportunity to understand the fabric of the universe as being much more tightly woven than previously conceivable. One of Shakespeare’s great consummations as a writer is explaining supposed and naturally occurring phenomena during a time when people readily accepted the existence of supernatural beings without reasoning or understanding. Each of the plays begins with a paranormal occurrence, delivered in the form of a ghost and a threesome of witches respectively. Shakespeare uses the shocking unrealism of such occurrences to illustrate disturbances to natural order. Specifically, Hamlet and Macbeth showcase the supernatural to convey nature’s innate responsiveness to human immorality.
Prior to examining the crude repercussions of immorality, natural law and conscience must be traced in accordance with Hamlet and Macbeth to distinguish evil deeds from justifiable human action. Conscience is an awareness of a natural order which gives life significance and purpose under a natural law. The mind is compelled to seek out rationality and organization provided by such a natural order. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are extraordinarily human under this human condition of possessing conscience. Hamlet and Macbeth’s series of astoundingly intimate personal soliloquys reveal their internal search for answers and explanations as well as their understandings of a natural law which lays out right and wrong. Possibly the most famous line in the history of literature is an ideal illustration of mankind’s fundamental questions about the nature of existence with Hamlet’s “to be, or not to be: that is the question.” (Shakespeare, Hamlet 3.1.64). Although the structure of his own life has been broken, Hamlet is compelled to question whether death is fundamentally better or worse than living. Furthermore, he chooses to live. Hamlet does not commit suicide; he is murdered at the end of the play. His choice discloses a conscience which essentially understands life’s significance over death. Macbeth also precedes the actualization of his immorality with a contradictory exposition of a superego which draws out the deviation of his action to him. In his major soliloquy anticipating the arrival of King Duncan, Macbeth laments that he would readily execute the assassination if it would bring an end to his desires. He would risk the fate of his soul, if not for the more immediate physical consequences:
But in these cases
We still have judgment here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th' inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. (Macbeth 1.7.7-12)
Macbeth presents an intrinsic understanding of man’s communion with the world and the immediate effects of human action in the present realm, which is what’s holding him back. He continues to process the logistics of the murder and is stuck in the reality that the king is at his house “in double trust” (Macbeth 1.7.12). He is the king’s kinsman and subject as well as host. Macbeth knows that killing the king would be wrong, especially with Duncan being virtuous and beloved by his subjects.
Each protagonist exemplifies the contemplation of morality and ethics. If the murderers’ deeds cannot be explained by a missing moral compass or an allotment of inhuman genes, evil in the plays must be the result of deterrence from natural law. Disobeying this supreme government is against the principle of reason. For every sentient and non-sentient being, there is an order which moves everything through life towards a compelling end suited for its nature. Thus, a being’s existence lies in following the natural laws which are rooted in nature functioning according to its end. The end of the dagger is being something used for killing and the end of the flower is something to be admired. If the flower loses its petals, it becomes a weed and loses its function to present beauty. If it is steamed to extract its fragrance, it becomes a perfume. No particle, no organism, and no human will remain what it is if it strays from its destiny. Deviation is possible due to human freedom which allows man to refuse the direction assigned to him by a predominant authority. Logically, freedom against natural law is unnatural. The universe’s structure exists in order to prevent uncontrolled and purposeless behavior; its ideal execution is the blueprint for utopia. In Shakespeare, the law prohibiting man to kill continuously poses a unique absurdity. It exists to maintain a moral social order where each individual inheres and can reach his or her potential and end. Man’s natural tendency to preserve life stems from fundamental dispositions of continuing a species. The end of man is more life. Murder is the most violent blow to the balance of predetermined order in society on earth. The act is so intensely aberrant that it shatters the discreet filter between normal and paranormal realities. The act of murder is used as the catalyst for supernatural intervention in each plot with its inevitable reverberations throughout reality. The murder of King Hamlet is “most foul, strange and unnatural” (Hamlet 1.5.33) and is thus accompanied by terrible supernatural occurrences with the king’s post-funeral return. Not only was King Hamlet’s predetermined fate destroyed, but his own brother, created to be his companion, was the one to quietly intervene with natural law. The king’s recount of events for Prince Hamlet demonstrates the inexorable, fluid aftershocks of human wickedness throughout political and social dynamics:
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused. (Hamlet 1.5.41-44).
The evil nature of the murder has poisoned the entire microcosm of Denmark where the old order of a goodly king and his loving queen is replaced by a darker regulation with a suspicious leader and his widowed sister in law and wife. As Marcellus had previously claimed, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” (Hamlet 1.4.90). Word choice suggests definite intent and powerful meaning to the supernatural accompanying wicked human behavior with abused and rotten arousing concern about whether the remaining characters and societies have any hope in reaching their end. The introduction of the supernatural accentuates the heroes’ extreme tragic flaws which are capable of corrupting nature itself. In Macbeth, the witches are introduced before horrible crimes have been committed to allow the audience to understand that something is crooked before any action takes place. Based on powers the witches may exhibit and their affinity to appear and disappear mysteriously, some interpret that “the three ‘weird sisters’, as the three bearded hags call themselves, may be considered, if one wishes, as agents of Fate or Destiny” (Smidt, 425). However, as examined in Macbeth’s contemplation of murdering Duncan before the king’s arrival, their prophecy does not lead him to become evil. After hearing it, he thoroughly understands that the murder will be wrong and unnatural and executed simply to improve his position. Here in Shakespeare’s evil-doers lies an alarming disregard for a present conscience.
No killer is supernatural or exempt from morality. Macbeth is the “killer with a conscience” because of his understanding of what he is doing. His continued perception of seeing the witches and ghosts show that he can still acknowledge, at least subconsciously, the deviant destruction he has caused. In Hamlet, Claudius is completely aware of his evil, and yet he attempts to pray until he realizes he is immune to forgiveness unless he can let go of the benefits from his sin. He pays for his deeds, and even shows the audience that what he has done weighs heavy on his heart with exclamations such as “How smart a lash that speech doth gibe my conscience!” (Hamlet 3.1.50) when his conscience is caught during the play. Hamlet himself ends up a murderer, and yet it is impossible to remove the notion of his conscience while looking at his deep contemplations on man’s existence and nature, acknowledging man’s goodness with: What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! – (Hamlet 2.2.308-311)
Hamlet presents the general idea that man himself is touched by divinity because man is special in his beauty and ability comparative to all other life forms. It is this speck of grace which brings with it the freedom of choice and the power to influence the surrounding world. Paranormal activity accompanying such influence simply proves man’s inherent virtuousness and evil’s unnatural role in corruption.
Applicable to each play, Hibbs and Hibbs claim that “the world Shakespeare presents in Macbeth is saturated with the supernatural. It is not one that allows for a neat division of the two realms.” They apply this idea further to the teachings of Thomas Aquinas to determine that “the presence of the supernatural does not excuse men from responsibility or entail that they should be less vigilant in the pursuit of justice, even in the use of righteous force. Precisely such a cooperation of human beings with divine grace seems to be advocated by the play itself.” The supernatural realm is brought into Shakespeare’s worlds to show the effects of human evil. He also brilliantly exposes the paradox of mankind which lies in the inability of man to acknowledge human competence. Disorder is blamed on a supernatural realm while sanctified potential for welfare is neglected in fear of this same realm. No matter if right and wrong are known before the action or if fear is the hesitation behind an evil act, Shakespeare uses the supernatural in Hamlet and Macbeth to show that evil is a constant and a human creation which for which humans are solely responsible in wrecking natural order.

Word Count: 1,643

Works Cited
Hibbs, Stacey, and Thomas Hibbs. "Virtue, Natural Law, and Supernatural Solicitation: A Thomistic Reading of Shakespeare's Macbeth." Literary Reference Center. EBSCO, 15 Feb. 2002. Web. 19 Oct. 2010.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Burton Raffel and Harold Bloom. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Harold Bloom and Janyce Marson. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2008. Print.
Smidt, Kristian. "Spirits, Ghosts, and Gods in Shakespeare." Literary Reference Center. EBSCO, 25 June 2002. Web. 19 Oct. 2010.