Abstract
Shakespeare's tragedies repeatedly dramatize a universe in which moral transgression produces consequences that extend beyond individual psychology to affect society, nature, and the non-human world. This study examines how Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear construct a system of moral ecology, understood as a framework of ethical causality in which human actions generate interconnected consequences across psychological, social, and natural orders. Using qualitative close reading informed by moral criticism, ecocriticism, animal studies, and early modern cosmology, the study analyzes selected passages representing natural disturbance, animal imagery, and conscience as forms of ethical response. The findings show that the three tragedies share a recurring pattern in which ethical transgression is associated with environmental disorder, the destabilization of human–animal boundaries, and psychological suffering. However, each play develops and resolves this pattern differently. These findings suggest that Shakespeare's tragedies represent nature not merely as a passive setting but as an integral part of a broader moral order, highlighting the interconnectedness of human action, responsibility, and suffering.
First Page
1053
Last Page
1069
Recommended Citation
Bakkar, M.
(2026).
Moral Ecology in Shakespeare's Tragedies: Nature, Animals, and Conscience as Ethical Agents in Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear.
Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts, 6(8), 1053-1069.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17977/2797-4480.1251
Available at:
https://citeus.um.ac.id/jolla/vol6/iss8/2
Included in
Animal Studies Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Philosophy Commons, Renaissance Studies Commons