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William Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of his four great tragedies, i.e. Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. It is the most mature and most refined work of art. In many aspects Macbeth reminds of Hamlet. The fascination for the supernatural, the motive of revenge, the bloodshed and the combat are the common features of both the plays. Macbeth was first published in 1623. This paper tries to analyse the use of supernatural elements in Shakespeare’s Macbeth such as the witches, the ghost, and the floating dagger.

There are two methods of using the supernatural in literature. It may be used to work out results impossible to natural agencies, or it may be employed simply as a human belief, becoming a motive power and leading to results reached by purely naturalmeans. (Doak, H.M., 321)

Rising Action

The play begins with the meeting of the three witches planning to meet Macbeth who is returning from the battlefield. Then, King Duncan along with his two sons Malcolm and Donalbain waiting for Macbeth, receive the news from the bleeding seargent, that, Macbeth and Banquo are fighting bravely against the traitor, MacDonald. Then arrives Ross, a nobleman from Scotland and he breaks the news of Macbeth's victory in the battlefield. The king orders to execute MacDonald the Thane of Cawdor and bestows Macbeth with the title of the Thane of Cawdor. Now Macbeth and Banquo on their way back from the battlefield, are met by the three witches. They hail Macbeth addressing him with the three titles the 'Thane of Glamis', the 'Thane of Cawdor' and the 'King' hereafter. They also declare that Banquo will be the father of a King When the witches disappear, Ross comes and announces that Macbeth has become the Thane of Cawdor. Now, Macbeth feels that he can become the King of Scotland by murdering the King. When Macbeth and Banquo reach the royal palace, the king announces his elder son Malcolm to be the heir to the throne. He also declares that he will spend the night at Macbeth's castle as a guest of honour.  Macbeth writes a letter to his wife describing the three prophecies of the witches. Then a messenger comes and informs Lady Macbeth about the arrival of the king to the castle. Lady Macbeth knowing the soft nature of her husband plans the murder of the king. She invokes the dark spirit of the night to wrap the world in darkness so that a knife may not see the wound it makes in the chest of the king. Duncan arrives at Macbeth's castle. Macbeth is in a state of indecision. He is not afraid of the deed of murder but is afraid of the consequences. Lady Macbeth comes and forces him to carry on the plan to murder the king and finally Macbeth is resolved.

With the beginning of Act II the feast is over and the king goes to sleep. The fateful night is unusually stormy and dreadful. After a private meeting with Banquo, Macbeth starts having hallucinations of a dagger hanging in the air. Now a bell rings declaring it is time to murder the king Lady Macbeth puts the guards to sleep with wine. Somehow Macbeth kills the king. Before opening the gate at knocking the porter plays the role of hell-porter and lets in the farmer and equivocator. Macduff goes to wake up the king. Macbeth and Lenox are discussing the weather last night. Macduff returns immediately, declaring that the king has been murdered Macbeth goes in and kills the two guards. Malcolm and Donalbain run away to save their own lives. Macbeth takes charge of the country and throws a feast. Meanwhile a murderer comes to inform Macbeth that Banquo has been killed but his son Fleance has escaped. When Macbeth sits down to eat, Banquo's ghost appears and Macbeth is afraid. Lady Macbeth tells the guests that Macbeth is not well so the meeting is dispensed. Macbeth now realises that Macduff has not come to the feast, so he plans another crime Lenox is seen discussing with one Lord that Macbeth must have murdered the king and Banquo. The Lord tells Lenox that Macduff has gone to England to seek the help of Northumberland and Siward for the restoration of Duncan's heir to the throne of Scotland.

Now Macbeth goes to meet the witches for the second time to enquire about his future. The witches produce the horrible apparitions with the help of their magic powers. The first apparition warns Macbeth to beware of Macduff. The second apparition tells him not to be afraid of a man born of a woman. The third apparition tells him not to fear till Birnam woods come to Dunsinane hill. Now he decides to  kill Lady Macduff and her children as Macduff has fled to England.

When Lady Macduff is engaged in joking and laughing with her little son, the murderers come and kill them. Macduff meets Malcolm and relates the circumstances prevailing in Scotland. When they are planning to assault Scotland Ross comes and informs Macduff about the murder of his family.

Climax and Denouement

Then comes the famous sleepwalking scene of Lady Macbeth. The doctor comes to examine Lady Macbeth and her hysterical behaviour she confesses the guilt of murdering the King and getting Banquo killed. Several lords meet Malcolm and they march towards Birnam woods. Macbeth has fortified the castle of Dunsinane for his protection. Macbeth is informed about the enemy marching and the doctor attending on Lady Macbeth comes to inform him that the disease of his wife is that of mind and not body. Malcolm orders his soldiers to cut the branches of Birnam woods and carry on their shoulders. This way Birnam woods start moving towards the castle. Now Macbeth comes to know that his wife is dead. He also becomes indifferent to life. He asks his men to be prepared for the final battle the Birnam woods are approaching towards him.

Finally Macbeth and Macduff are the  front of each other. Macbeth tells Macduff that he is not afraid of  him because man born of  a woman can do him no harm. Then Macduff tells him that he was not born naturally but he was ripped off from his mothers womb untimely. Macduff kills Macbeth and they all rejoice. Malcolm becomes the king and peace is restored.

Supernatural Elements

Shakespeare makes free and frequent use of the supernatural in his plays. In the sixteenth century England there was widespread interest in the practice of magic among all sections of people. The dramatists of that period employed supernatural forces to cater the taste of the erstwhile audience Shakespeare employed this element partly to cater the popular taste and partly to heighten and intensify the sense of mystery and tragedy by creating an atmosphere of horror, terror, awe and mystery with the introduction of ghosts, apparitions, witches etc. Shakespeare has employed various forms of the supernatural in Macbeth.

Religion is not absent in this play, and “includes witches, prophecy, and arcane details of demonology- many of them explicated by old historicity and all fascinating to the reigning monarch, as new historicists have compellingly recognized.” (Cox, John D., 236)

Significance of The Supernatural Elements

They render the tragedy tremendous and awe inspiring and bring home the insignificance and helplessness of human beings in the presence of these powerful evil forces and confront us with the deepest mystery and pathos of human life. In this play as well as in Hamlet, “while seeming to tread upon the very boundaries of an unknown and unfathomable world, he has really confined himself rigidly to the phenomena of superstitious beliefs working out to solution purely moral and psychological problems.” (Doak, H.M., 321)

Certainly the witches contribute a great deal to the development of character. They give us some useful indications of the working of Macbeth's mind at some crucial junctures in the play. According to Kranz, David L.(350),“Opening scenes are supposed to ‘set the scene’ giving the audience temporal and spatial bearings. Here, the witches ask the right questions (when, where, how), but their answers are terribly vague and unsatisfying (sometime after the battle and before sunset, on the heath, and by hovering).” It is often imagined that Macbeth is influenced by the witches in the treacherous murder of Duncan and in his usurpation of the crown. Daniel Albright opposes this common notion,(227) “The witches in Macbeth are character-clouds, personages that can be construed inany number of different ways. As Stephen Greenblatt points out, the witches'account for nothing ... it is in fact extremely difficult to specify what, if anything,they do or even what, if anything, they are'.” But the massacre of the innocents like Macduff's wife and children was certainly not dictated or even hinted at, by the witches. It was all done by Macbeth himself.

Even Banquo’s ghost is not out of place. “A ghost is demanded in Macbeth by virtue of the peculiar constitution of the ghost-seer's mind.” (Moorman, F. W., 195)

Shakespeare's heroes come to suffering and death due to some flaw in their characters. They have a choice of action and they come to grief when they choose wrongly. The moral responsibility of their choice lies in themselves and not at that of fate or fortune, or any other agency. The witches hail both Banquo and Macbeth. While Banquo ignores them, Macbeth is influenced by their prophesies. He has "vaulting ambition" and so believes in what the witches say. Their words do not lead Banquo to act in the way Macbeth did, even though one of the prophesies concerned him directly.

Shakespeare's ghosts and witches are represented as objective motifs of subjective states of mind. They are external manifestations of the inward passions, ambitions, temptations agitating the minds and hearts of his characters. They are visible agents of the invisible impulses driving the characters and their deeds for which they themselves are responsible. This is their dramatic significance.

1. Albright, Daniel. “The Witches and the Witch: Verdi’s Macbeth.” Cambridge Opera Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 225– 52, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3878296. 2. Cox, John D. “Religion and Suffering in ‘Macbeth.’” Christianity and Literature, vol. 62, no. 2, Sage Publications, Ltd., 2013, pp. 225–40, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44324131. 3. Doak, H. M. “‘Supernatural Soliciting’ in Shakespeare.” The Sewanee Review, vol. 15, no. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1907, pp. 321–31, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27530861. 4. Kranz, David L. “The Sounds of Supernatural Soliciting in ‘Macbeth.’” Studies in Philology, vol. 100, no. 3, University of North Carolina Press, 2003, pp. 346–83, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4174762. 5. Moorman, F. W. “Shakespeare’s Ghosts.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 1, no. 3, Modern Humanities Research Association, 1906, pp. 192–201, https://doi.org/10.2307/3713608. 6. Shakespeare, William, Orgel, et al. Macbeth. Van Haren Publishing, 2016.