IIB INTERNATIONAL REFEREED ACADEMIC SOCIAL SCIENCES JOURNAL Ekim – Kasım – Aralık 2013 Sayı: 12 Cilt: 4 Güz October - November - December 2013 Issue: 12 Volume: 4 Fall Jel Kod: Y-I www.iibdergisi.com ID: 330 K:306 108 THE IMPORTANT ROLES OF IMAGES, SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS WITH SUPERSTITIONS AND PROPHECIES IN JULIUS CAESAR, MACBETH AND HAMLET Zeynep Rana SELİMOĞLU Atılım University, Preparatory School Abstract: Although their existence cannot be proved, supernatural elements, superstitions, prophecies and some outstanding images have always grabbed the attention of people. In history, there were different times when people believed in these elements strongly and shaped their life when they witnessed any of them. The aim of this paper is to focus on the use of these elements in literature in drama. Shakespeare is one of the playwrights that used these elements in most of his plays. Three of his plays entitled Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Hamlet and are chosen to reveal how these elements are interpreted differently by the main characters in these plays in particular. Prior to the discussion concerning these images, supernatural elements, superstitions and omens, what might be done is to have a look at the Elizabethans’ conception of these elements and images with beliefs in superstitions and prophecies. Keywords: Shakespeare, Supernatural Elements, Superstitions, Prophecies, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet INTRODUCTION Supernatural elements, superstitions, prophe- cies and some outstanding images have always grabbed the attention of readers, audiences or spectators. Thus, authors, screenplay writers or playwrights try to use them in order to be written about or watched more. However, in history there were periods when people deeply believed in the existence of supernatural elements, superstitions and prophecies. They were the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods that playwrights of the periods used such elements and beliefs in order to reflect the way of life of the audience. In his essay en- titled “Supernatural Intervention: Two Dramatic Traditions” Robert Rentoul Reed writes the reason why playwrights of the period preferred using such elements in their works: “Their repeated employment of sorcerers, demons, and witches as indispensable motivators of their plots was in full keeping with the Elizabethan belief that the supernatural world and the earth were not, at all points, mutually exclusive. Heaven had receded to a remote distance, but not Hell—at least not yet. Black magic was feared as never before, because of its powers over human life. As an effect of the doctrine that linked the occult with the mundane, the Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, worldly as they were in temperament, composed a secular genre of drama in which supernatural agents are among the principal characters; and even in a number of plays which lie slightly outside