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<p>This article is an attempt to explore the inclusion and the use of superstitious elements in Mark Twain’s novel <em>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</em> (1884) and Shakespeare’s play <em>Macbeth</em> (1611). Superstition involves a deep belief in the magic and the occult, to almost to an extent of obsession, which is contrary to realism. Through the analytical and psychological approaches, this paper tries to shed light on Twain’s and Shakespeare’s use of supernaturalism in their respective stories, and the extent the main characters are influenced by it. A glance at both stories reveals that characters are highly affected by superstitions, more than they are influenced by their religious beliefs, or other social factors and values. The researcher also tries to explore the role played by superstition, represented by fate and the supernatural in determining the course of actions characters undertake in both dramas. The paper concluded that the people who lived in the past were superstitious to an extent of letting magic, omens; signs, etc. affect and determine their lives; actions and future decisions. They determine their destiny and make it very difficult for them to avoid it, alter it or think rationally and independently. And that, man’s actions are not isolated, but closely connected to the various forces operating in the universe.</p>

The dramatists of ancient Greece fixed the character and features of tragedy, and the Greek philosopher Aristotle analyzed and defined its nature. But Shakespeare, as a romantic playwright in Elizabethan England, violated the rules set and propagated by the classics for the sake of being truer to nature. Shakespeare"s concept of tragedy may be illustrated from three main points of views, which distinguish him as a dramatist, they are: Tragic Hero, Tragic Action (Tragic Plot) and Tragic Appeal (Tragic Catharsis), aspects which this paper attempts to stress and analyze. Through critical analysis of Shakespeare"s four major tragedies, this paper attempts also to highlight the features that constitute a Shakespearean tragedy. The paper also tries to show how a Shakespearean tragedy is different from the classical tragedy of ancient Greece. The researcher concluded that a Shakespearean tragedy moves on several plans all at once. It reflects the contradictions of social life during the Renaissance culture; it anticipates the development of realism and romanticism in the nineteenth century, and it reveals the hidden depths of the human mind unknown to literature before. Thus it is of universal appeal. Above all, it is the finest evidence of Shakespeare"s humanism which shows such a profound understanding of the human soul in pain.