Lady Macbeth Is the Real Villain of the Play Do You Agree?

‘Lady Macbeth is the real villain of the play’ do you agree?
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. She holds a malicious agenda and many evil tendencies which separate her from the average individual. The key elements which make Lady Macbeth a villainous human being is her inhumane conscience and lack of compassion for her victims, her deceptiveness and her manipulation.
Lady Macbeth is no more than an incarnation of evil. 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 declaration that she would have ‘dash’d the brains out’ of her own baby if she were to become queen proves of her egotistical nature and heartless conscience. When she finds out the prophecies given to Macbeth to become king, 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.
The question of whether a person’s real state of mind is accurately reflected from there outside appearance is a key theme in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is the primary culprit. 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’t’: 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; the cost of deception.
In the play, Macbeth is merely a puppet, manipulated by his ambitious wife to commit his dark deeds. Macbeth’s fatal ambition is unleashed by his wife. He didn’t have the intention to kill King Duncan, though is given the motivation and confidence by Lady Macbeth. Macbeth was simply an accessory to his wife who only used him so she could have power. All of the villainous decisions throughout the play were made by her, including the murder of King Duncan, though Macbeth was the one who physically killed him. Lady Macbeth uses guilt and shame to control her husband; when he hesitates about killing King Duncan she calls him a "coward" and says "When you durst do it, then you were a man."
Shakespeare ‘s Macbeth shows the tragedy of a brave soldier brainwashed by his ambitious wife whose knowings were that power is something that men should want more than anything else and yet she is the one whose desire for power is the most desperate. Her skills of deception portrayed her as an innocent character though she could not hide from herself the selfish acts which she had performed through the play which had led to her guilt and eventually her suicide.