The collective minds of people in England in Shakespeare's time struggled to explain the inexplicable; they struggled to understand randomness and human nature. They believed that a certain cosmic order had emerged since the beginning of time. This order was expressed in the Elizabethan Chain of Being. When something or someone went out of place it sent the universe into total chaos. There would not be simple confusion, as the modern definition would imply, but it would send the cosmos into a downward spiral destroying all life unless this natural order was restored. “We lose some of the immensity of Elizabethan tragedy, the irony of its comedy, and the insult of its derision” (Elizabethan World Order; Cynthia Fuhrman) because this mentality is unknown to modern readers. Shakespeare uses the element of Elizabethan chaos to emphasize the tragedy of Macbeth. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Shakespeare carefully illustrates the violation of the Elizabethan chain of being through symbolism in nature that runs parallel to the events of the play. The common thread is the chaotic element. The witches' opening line "Fair is foul and foul is fair" (Act I, scene I, line 12) sums up the plot before it is even outlined. Shakespeare played on the Elizabethan people's fear of the inexplicable powers of evil that act to reverse a natural order. Witches represented evil and by saying those words they foreshadowed destruction. The oxymoron in the words does not exist for the purpose of confusing the reader and adding an air of mystery. The purpose is to strike the reader with the importance of the events that would continue in the play. The natural world in Macbeth followed a cyclical pattern. In the beginning there was a semblance of order in nature. All beings adapt well to their niche. However the weather bore omens on the wind which gave way to chaos. When Macbeth disturbed the order by destroying a life, he left a gap in the chain, he became the stone that spread a wave from shore to shore. Duncan's unplanned removal created a space that needed to be filled. Of course his children would be next in line. The ailment of his premature death could be resolved with the next logically sequential move. There could not be an empty space, yet the intervention of Macbeth, rather than Malcom, created a space that needed to be filled. This would continue down the chain until the order of the universe was in chaos. At the height of disorder, nature is seen in turmoil. For example, a natural herbivore became cannibalistic without warning; the docile horses in captivity ran away furiously and devoured each other. The madness of one man's greed and lust for power affected the stables, albeit indirectly. It caused confusion and terror in the hearts of the characters. Darkness fell when it should have been daylight. "By the clock it is day, yet dark night smothers the traveling lamp. Is it not the predominance of night, or the shame of day, that darkness buries the face of the earth when living light should kiss it?" (Act II, scene 4, lines 5-11) Without an adequate understanding of the Elizabethan mentality the reader cannot grasp its intensity or see its cause. The wind howling with death cries and the unlikely defeat of the mighty falcon were Shakespeare's other important natural incidents. Furthermore, the weather was increasingly terrible until the climax of the show. With the gradual restoration of order the phenomenon of nature was eliminated. Character development was a direct result.