Do you have initiative?

Macbeth and his lady have been regarded as one of the only happily married couples in all of Shakespeare’s plays. This is because they work together very well. They are both very, very crazy. The only difference between the two is that LadyMacbeth has more initiative. While Macbeth does the actual killing, he would not do so without Lady Macbeth’s initiative and command. Out of the two, Macbeth and his Lady, neither of them appears to be more villainous than the other. Macbeth went to his lady with a problem, but he had to have known the solution she was going to suggest. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY randomly pulls out killing someone else as a random suggestion or a solution without seeming like they would've made it. There is no way Macbeth did not expect her to pull that one out, because it is actually exactly what he was looking for the whole time. He wanted to do it, but needed confirmation from his wife that it was a good idea. I say this because of his reactions. When Lady Macbeth suggesting killing the king, Macbeth never said, "Woah. That’s a bad idea honey! Maybe we SHOULDN'T resort to killing as a first option. You are crazy. Get away from me.” Instead he just noodled around with the idea and found a way to do it, only ever saying that they might get caught. 

            So what is the difference between Macbeth and his lady? They both had the idea, right? Well that’s simple. Lady Macbeth took the initiative where Macbeth did not. Macbeth obviously wanted to kill the king, but he had to have his wife tell him to before he actually would. If Macbeth had real initiative, he would have gotten up and just killed the king without having to ask his wife for advice to do so. Even when she suggested her plan, he still had to toy around with the idea and ask questions about whether or not the plan would work or get them caught. It is obvious who has the real initiative between the two of them.

As defined by the wonderful Google dictionary, Initiative is “the power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do.” This fits exactly with what Lady Macbeth did versus Macbeth. While this is, of course, mental initiative (seeing as Macbeth ultimately did the actual killing) it still stands true that Macbeth is very lacking in the department of mental initiative.

Would Macbeth have killed the king without Lady Macbeth being his guide and telling him to do so? Probably. That said, it would have taken him much longer to do so. Lady Macbeth was really the push he needed to get the job done. Both Macbeth and his wife are crazy and to say otherwise is just plain wrong. Macbeth seems LESS crazy, because the idea of killing the king is put forth by Lady Macbeth, but the idea was not once rejected by Macbeth. Not once.

BELOW: African Symbol for Initiative and a depiction of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth