Macbeth and Nature

Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare focuses on the theme of nature and its rightful order. Everything in Macbeth contends against the natural order from the setting of the play to the killing of Duncan. In order to attain his goal of becoming king, Macbeth is filled with dangerous ambition that pushes him to commit the treacherous crime of murdering Duncan in his sleep, a disturbance of nature itself. Because Macbeth has made an enemy of nature, the rest of the plot focuses on this ongoing fight between the two until Macbeth dies. Shakespeare portrays the importance of a natural order and the consequences that can arise from disrupting its logic. Macbeth is a vital character that became ultimately doomed because he violated nature and was later defeated by it.

Right from the beginning, Shakespeare introduces three unnatural characters, The Weird Sisters. They are supernatural beings from an unknowing source and who “should be women” and “yet [their] beards” as with their other obscure looks leaves a question of uncertainty towards their genders (1.3, 39-42). These unnatural beings later meet with Macbeth and greeted him as the new king of Scotland. Immediately, Macbeth is filled with an enormous amount of ambition so that he would question himself “why do I yield to that suggestion […] against the use of nature?” (1.3, 134-137). He realized the uncomfortable feeling of temptation stirring within him was unusual and he felt compelled to complete the witches’ prophecy. After much lamentation and hesitation, Macbeth murders King Duncan in his sleep, the first act against the will of nature. He had murdered “the innocent sleep” and as punishment “Macbeth shall sleep no more” (2.2, 48-56). However, Macbeth did not just murder sleep. Inst...

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...ghost appeared and when the woods of Birnam approached Dunsinane, he realized how wrong he had been. By killing Duncan, Macbeth had already unleashed a catastrophe into nature’s systematic ways and it seems as if nature decided to play along. Macbeth had become, in a sense, unnatural. Therefore, with Macbeth dead, everything went back to normal with Malcolm as the rightful king instead of Macbeth. Nature had won its battle and unsurprisingly, man had lost once again.

Macduff may have killed Macbeth in technical terms but in actuality, it is nature that truly killed him. He died in desperation of trying to secure his fate and win against nature but he has reached his limits. Nature can be the only winner and as seen with Macbeth’s ultimate fate, anyone who violates it would be led to the punishment of death. The humankind is too small to deal with such a greater bei