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William Shakespeare
Macbeth
Natural, Unnatural, Supernatural

William Shakespeare was baptised on the 26th of April, and died on the 23rd of April
1616. He was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in
the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.
Macbeth is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, in which the idea of losing and
sacrifying everything in order to obtain power is denigrated by the drama that occurs during the
play.
I would like to start the topic by giving the proper definitions for every state of reality
presented in the title. Natural can have as an synonym the word normal and it bassically
represents in this case, a situation which has nothing unusual or nothing special everything
taking its normal course. Unnatural on the other hand , means exactly the opposite thing:
lacking human qualities or sympathies; monstrous; inhuman, at variance with what is normal or
to be expected. And at last but not least, we have to deal with the word supernatural which
relates to being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena;
abnormal.
In this Shakespeare play, unnatural happens when evil actions take place. For example,
after Duncans death, Ross and an old man converse about unnatural and the strange thing is that
this very discussion seems to coincide with what actually really happened. Another unnatural
symbol which in my opinion marked the horrible action took by Macbeth is the owl killing a
falcon that usually kills mice.

The last one in this scene is Duncans horses acting wildly and eating each other. All of
these occurrences are unnatural, and therefore drag attention away from normality. Towards the
beginning of the play, a major controversy between natural and unnatural occurrences arose
from the witches. Usually speaking in paradoxes, the witches confuse the characters and even the
audience into thinking that whatever is unnatural is natural and vice versa. Macbeth calls them
imperfect speakers (I.iii.73), referring to their paradoxical words. Macbeth calls them
imperfect speakers (I.iii.73), referring to their paradoxical words. In the witches first
appearance (Act 1, Scene 1), the witches end their meeting with the words (in unison), Fair is
foul, and foul is fair,/Hover through the fog and filthy air (I.i.12-13). This basically says that
right is wrong and wrong is right, right being natural and wrong being unnatural. Everything
natural is good and everything evil and bad is associated with being unnatural. Also, to stay on
the topic of the witches, when Banquo meets the witches, he connotes that they are unnatural:
What are these,/So withered, and so wild in their attire,/That look not like th inhabitants o th
earth/And yet are on t? (I.iii.40-43). He confusedly notices their beards, knowing that they are
women. Behind his speech lies a suspicion of unnaturalness, especially in the previous quote
saying that they do not look like inhabitants of earth, but are on it (earth)
Macbeth with its supernatural theme was the 17th centurys equivalent to the modern
day horror movie.
I would say that it is natural something which is normal, which takes its natural course,
but this does not mean that I believe that killing and betraying your king and then your best
friend is normal, its just that these things, even if they dont happen often are still encountered
in our daily lives.The more complicated part is to distinguish unnatural from supernatural,
because there is a thin line between them and at a first glance they might seem to be the same
thing. I would think though that unnatural in this play is represented by the visions had by the
king .To develope, these sights were provided by the fully charged conscience, it was a disease
of the mind provoked by the terrible decision they had taken., even if he thinks there are
supernatural appereances.It also proves that the husband and wife were not crazy or serial killers
because of the remorses that they end up having. I know that Macbeth ended up caring about
nobody but himself but I think that after being exposed to so much death plus a big ego you
become imune to these types of things. The supernatural has its representatives those being the

witches. These are superntural creatures because of their physical features like the fact that they
were women with beards , because of their nature, being said thatbecause of their appereance
they are complete and perfect creatures, they seek for no other half,and because of their dark
power.
Macbeth no longer follows his own instincts but instead relies completely on the
supernatural. These apparitions are one of the reasons for Macbeths end. He relied on the
supernatural so much that he lost his strength of suspicion, this leads Macbeth into being tricked
by the witches.
When Macbeth meets Macduff at his end he is not scared and threatens Macduff not to
fight him since he has too much of Macduffs family blood on his sword already. Macbeth is
suggesting that he can kill Macduff if he wants to. The apparitions are also important in the fact
that Shakespeare expresses his view that the supernatural is evil, and can trick even the strongest
of people. This is the last meeting between Macbeth and the witches before the play ends and
also the last times any supernatural things occur. The scene also displays the witches
supernatural abilities and contributes towards Macbeths increasing fear of death, because the
apparitions contradict themselves by saying, Beware of Macduff and None of women born
shall harm Macbeth. Macbeth does not understand that he is being tricked by the fact that
Macduff was born premature or by caesarean section, it is not clear which one, but by being born
that way he is not of, woman born, therefore it is possible that Macduff could harm Macbeth.
The contradiction in the apparitions makes Macbeth double minded, unsure and scared. Though
eventually, with great apprehension, he manages to convince himself that not even Macduff can
harm him. Macbeth, aswell as the audience, at this point, are unclear as to what the third
apparition means. The apparition involves a child holding a tree and is crowned. Macbeth
ignores it, but is still fearing death and his kingship is becoming strained and confusing for both
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
At the start of the play Macbeth is portrayed as a tactful and intelligent soldier but in his
final battle he uses none of these skills. The reason for this is that the evil supernatural has made
Macbeth lose these Virtues. The supernatural theme is a very important one in, Macbeth.
Otherwise the play could not have been concluded to its fullest extent, and Macbeth could not be

vanquished as ironically as he was when, Great Birnam Wood moved! Macbeth caused his own
destruction when he relied on the supernatural.