Who appears to be more evil? Macbeth or Lady Macbeth? Justify.

Every person has his or her individual opinion, and may be, my opinion would not go after those of many, but I think that Macbeth himself is more evil than his wife.

The most important reason that makes me think so is that of the insanity of Lady Macbeth. Two persons, following the same path, commits sin, and one of them passes days much more normally, and the other, how far devilish s/he is, at one stage, becomes mad for the guilt s/he feels inside because of the crime s/he has committed, then, it is easily understandable that the person who becomes insane is far more humane than the other. A human does have feelings, a demon does not. Lady Macbeth is found in the tragedy to lose her senses as the assassinations go on and finally, she dies. She can not endure such guilt, and that is why she feels that there is “the smell of the blood still” in her hands and “all the perfumes of Arabia” will not be enough to remove it.

Macbeth, on the contrary, leads a normal life, continues killing, and ruling the country like a bloody tyrant not even sparing small children to secure his kingship (his men kill Macduff’s son). Indeed, after killing so many people constantly, he does not get tired, neither he repents and turns off. Rather he says that it is difficult for him to return, and he himself tells to Lady Macbeth: “I am in blood stepped in so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er” (Act 3, Scene 4). He was ready to do anything for the sake of his survival and position. Even one of the witches, in Act 4, Scene 1, makes other witches alert when Macbeth was entering: “Something wicked this way comes” and Hecate also, considers him as ‘wayward’, ‘spiteful’ and ‘wrathful’ who only thinks of his own (Act 3, Scene 5). In fact, the news of his wife’s death does not bring any major change in his character. It seems that, his chief aim is to hold on the power at any cost and nothing can stir him.

So, to me, Macbeth is more malicious than his wife. Lady Macbeth, till a stage of her life, works as the spur, but the main wickedness is derived from Macbeth himself. His cruelty can not be ignored by condemning the witches’ equivocation or Lady Macbeth’s stimulation.