Lady macbeth is the real villain of the play do you agree?
Lady MacBeth is the real villain of the play, she was the smart and devious wife who said nothing so she was never suspected. She was brave and took on the man's job in the family. But, her and Macbeth's greed lead to their untimely deaths. In ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’, Shakespeare portrays many negative themes through the acts of Lady Macbeth which show the audience that she is real villain of this play. The key elements which make Lady Macbeth a villainous being is her lack of compassion for her victims, her deceptiveness and her manipulation.Lady Macbeth is no more than a villain. All of the acts she committed in the play were nothing else but for her selfish wants to gain power of the country and become queen. Her belief that she would have 'dash’d the brains out’ of her own baby if she were to become queen proves of her evil nature and conscience. When she finds out the prophecies given to Macbeth by the witches, she immediately acts to create a plan to murder the innocent and respected King Duncan of Scotland.
‘Unsex me here’: Lady Macbeth is referring to her Feminine nature and she is trying to say “Take away my feminine nature and take away my feelings so I feel no regret to helping kill King Duncan!"; There can be no sympathy for Lady Macbeth, she meant all that she did and put herself in front of all people around her.
She, as well as Macbeth show deceptive traits, pretending to be good whilst planning heinous crimes; ‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’. She is telling Macbeth to look innocent, but under his fake appearance he is going to murder King Duncan. Though this false impression exposed by Lady Macbeth had kept her innocence, her effort of burying her guilt is what had driven her mad and ultimately leading to her death.
Lady Macbeth herself goes and uses her cunning and deceptive feminine ways to drug the guards to make the doors to King Duncan's chamber open. She gives Macbeth the daggers and tells him to go and kill Duncan.
"Appear innocent like the flower but be the serpent under"
Even though Macbeth committed the murder, which Lady Macbeth convinced him to do so, she also played a fairly big part in the murder. By inviting King Duncan for dinner and being the nicest most helpful hostess she could, made King Duncan feel safe just like he was at home. When King Duncan was feeling secure in their house She uses her cunning and deceptive feminine ways to drug the guards to make the doors to King Duncan's chamber open. After the murder had been committed she also helped frame the men and clean Macbeth up as he was feeling remorse but she had none at all.
Following the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth comes back with the bloody daggers that killed King Duncan. Lady Macbeth then shouts at Macbeth for bringing them back and takes the daggers, demonstrating her authority over Macbeth, and places them back into the kings chamber after she wipes the guards cloths in the blood of recently deceased Duncan. She then comes back to Macbeth and tells him that she placed the daggers back to the chamber.
"My hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white"
As she sees her and Macbeth's hands covered in blood, she does not think of the emotional scars and guilt that Macbeth will have to live with, she only implies
"A little water clears us of this deed; how easy is it then!"
All this seems to begin to disappear after Duncan's murder and the onset of remorse and madness to many readers suggest that she has come out of the trance of being somehow possessed or enchanted by evil ( the influence of the witches). However, the later remorse and guilt which leads her to madness and suicide also suggests that she, like Macbeth himself, are victims of forces beyond their control. Remember that it is the presence of the witches that introduces the prospect of evil and their saying "fair is foul and foul is fair" indicates their intentions, they are the chief influencers of events and manipulators of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Without the self-fulfilling prophecy of the witches, Macbeth and his wife might not have thought of eliminating Duncan.
Because of her Manipulation and lack of compassion, Lady Macbeth is real villain in the play. She is the mastermind in control of Macbeth's hands persuading him to do the murder which otherwise I believe he would have stopped himself from doing. I agree with the statement that Macbeth & the witches are villains in the play but Lady Macbeth is the real villain.
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