How Important is the Elizabethan concept of

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How Important is the Elizabethan concept of “Natural Order” to our appreciation of Macbeth and Henry V.

The Elizabethan concept of Natural Order to our appreciation of Macbeth and Henry V was down to the belief that God created everything from man down to plants. He arranged hierarchical principles in the world and he ran the whole system. He controlled the animals and where their place was in the world along with all the other living creatures. Its natural instinct to know the lion was the king of the animal kingdom and the eagle was the king of the birds etc. The nobles sit in their set places according to the hierarchy of the court, at the dinner table and that is how Scotland deals with Natural Order.

However, Macbeth wanted to disobey the hierarchical order and wanted to reach heights to which he hadn’t been appointed (climb the dining tables ladder) thus not abiding by the rules of God. He cheated his way up the ladder by killing the ranks above him, thus upsetting the Natural Order. But if the rightful King were to be killed and a usurper take his position, the crime would not only be murder but it would be making a direct challenge to God. God can eventually guarantee integrity is done, but, until it is, the whole of life will suffer and natural things will become unnatural.

        It is not possible to restore the Natural Order to Scotland at this point until this episode has passed. Macbeth needs to be put in his place and God shows his fury by unleashing natural disasters of storms and earthquakes and the whole play is consumed by darkness after the murder of Duncan- darkness = evil, light = goodness.

A pure example is in ‘Hamlet’; the usurper Claudius has challenged God and has brought rottenness into the heart of Denmark. Instead of a beautiful garden, the country under Claudius has become:

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        “an unweeded garden

That grows to seed; things rank and grass in nature

Possess it merely.”

The heavens, too, are affected; there have been:

        “stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,

        Disasters in the sun…”

“…To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds” the sovereign is Macbeth and this shows dramatic irony again as God is associated with order and when there is disorder, then it is the devil’s work. Scotland is a healthy country, but now is being poisoned by Macbeth being put on the throne.

We have disobeyed God since the beginning of time, and he ...

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