SOURCE: “The Wooing of Lady Anne: A Psychological Inquiry,” in Shakespeare Quarterly 29, No. 1, Spring, 1978, pp. 28-36.

[In the following essay, Shupe psychoanalyzes the wooing scene between Richard and Anne, concluding that its outcome is realistic because Richard is a highly persuasive Machiavellian type and because Anne is confused and vulnerable.]

Early in Richard III, Richard, as part of his plot to win the throne, decides to marry the Lady Anne. He undertakes her wooing at what would appear to be the least propitious moment for such an enterprise, during the funeral procession for her father-in-law, Henry VI, whom Richard has murdered. Richard, already responsible for the death of her husband, could hardly be surprised at the storm of vituperation Anne pours forth when he accosts the procession. Yet, less than 180 lines after Anne's “Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!” (I. ii. 46),¹ she takes leave of Richard with the friendly and playful lines: “But since you teach me how to flatter you, / Imagine I have said farewell already” (ll. 223-24). During this time span Richard has maneuvered, lied, cajoled, chastised, flattered, and even offered up his own life to Anne.

Despite the considerable virtuosity of Richard's performance, the wooing scene has often been questioned on grounds of credibility. At best the scene has great difficulties; and an actor portraying Richard is virtually assured that his performance will be evaluated, at least in part, in terms of his success in making the scene persuasive.

In his Shakespeare on the Stage, William Winter said, “Edwin Booth was the only actor I ever saw who made absolutely credible the winning of Lady Anne; and, as nearly as I can ascertain, from careful study and inquiry, he was the only actor of Richard who ever accomplished that effect.”² Either this represents an overly critical view of the scene's difficulty or our standards for the scene have changed³—or, perhaps, the quality of acting has improved—because many modern critics regard the wooing scene as at least potentially credible. For example, Wolfgang Clemen believes that “Given a good performance, we are convinced, and only when the scene is read or subsequently analysed does it seem illogical.”⁴ Similarly, a reviewer of the 1967 Stratford, Ontario production of Richard III said that the director's “interpretation even made the wooing of Lady Anne feasible, and put the play into a meaningful perspective for our times.”⁵ Even though the wooing scene is now frequently viewed as credible, however, modern critics still express reservations about it in psychological terms. Thus, for example, Clemen says:

Anne's acquiescence following the dialogue between herself and Richard is bound to seem psychologically implausible according to modern standards, and critics have regarded the scene as no more than a brilliant bout of verbal fencing. But within a psychologically improbable framework Shakespeare has succeeded in achieving an effect both dramatically skilful and even humanly convincing.⁶

The question I wish to raise is whether the wooing scene is indeed psychologically implausible by modern standards.

I

Richard is a Machiavellian personality type.⁷ In order to obtain the throne, he is willing to lie and murder without qualm. He is cunning, ruthless, and capable of vast deception; at the same time, he is cool, aloof, and unresponsive to demands for justice and fair play. This picture of Richard is consistent with the findings of modern research concerned with the Machiavellian personality.

Stimulated by an interest in the nature of the successful manipulator, psychologist Richard Christie has developed a scale based on statements contained in Machiavelli's The Prince and the Discourses, a scale he calls the Mach scale.⁸ One version of this scale (Mach IV) contains twenty statements, and a given subject is asked to rate the extent of his agreement or disagreement with each. The following is a sampling of the statements:

One should take action only when sure it is morally right.
Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful
to do so.
It is wise to flatter important people.
It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there.(9)

The “High Mach” personality type tends to disagree with the first statement above and agree with the others. Most of Christie's research has involved subjects, usually college students, who, having responded to the statements, have then been divided on the basis of the median score into High and Low Mach groups. The two groups are then subjected to some experimental treatment, often an interpersonal game situation. The difference between Richard III and a college student who scores above the median on Christie's Mach scale may be of great magnitude, of course. But Christie's experimental findings nevertheless illuminate important aspects of Richard's personality.

Subjects who score as High Mach personality types tend to manifest a disparaging, hostile, and cynical view of people and are surprisingly candid about themselves. Richard's scornful treatment of others, consistent with the High Mach type, hardly needs to be documented from the play. And his candor about himself is remarkable for its directness: “I am determined to prove a villain” (I. i. 30). If we extend our analysis of Richard's self-disclosure back to his role in 3 Henry VI, we find such statements as the following:

Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry ‘Content!’ to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
.....I can add colors to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

(III. ii. 182-85, 191-93)

Even by self-definition, Richard is a High Mach type.

The candor of the High Mach only applies, of course, when there are no reasons for dissembling. For instance, in an experiment by Ralph V. Exline, in which subjects were goaded into cheating by a confederate of the experimenter and were later confronted by the experimenter for dishonesty (often with threats of intervention by the “Dean” or “Honor Council”), High Mach personality types looked the experimenter in the eye more frequently while denying the cheating and confessed to cheating less often than did Low Mach personality types.¹⁰

The following is a list of behaviors research has shown to be characteristic of High Machs, all of which are exemplified by Richard in the wooing scene.

(1) The High Mach improvises innovatively. Richard chastises, lies, and denies; then he confesses, but in doing so blames his crimes on his love for Anne. He parries rancor with flattery; he soothes; he is vulgar, sweet, and kind; he offers his life to Anne, and when she refuses to dispatch him he offers to kill himself at her command. In quick succession Richard tries tack after tack with incredible facility.

(2) The High Mach takes risks. We develop such great respect for Richard's virtuosity that, even had Anne taken him up on the offer of his life, we would have expected him adroitly to sidestep and turn the occasion to his advantage. Nevertheless, we must not forget that, because of the untimely occasion, the entire situation is fraught with great risk for Richard.

What? I that killed her husband and his father
To take her in her heart's extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit at all
But the plain devil and dissembling looks?

(ll. 230-36)

(3) The High Mach keeps cool and avoids becoming emotionally involved. The wooing scene is highly emotional, but it is Anne who charges the atmosphere, not Richard; he maintains a steady coolness. His responses to Anne's most vindictive curses are matter of fact, light, and flattering.

richard
Why dost thou spit at me?
anne
Would it were mortal poison for thy sake!
richard
Never came poison from so sweet a place.
anne
Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.
richard
Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

(ll. 144-49)

Anne is confused by Richard's behavior. She curses him, he responds with flattery; she professes hate, he vows love. Anne has every reason to hate him, but he doesn't react properly; he can't be convinced. Her confusion culminates with the pathetic “I would I knew thy heart” (l. 192). The Machiavellian personality type is at best in situations of confusion and ambiguity: “It is as if the high Machs took advantage of the general confusion produced by ambiguity to be slightly more Machiavellian than might have been astute when others had fewer distracting concerns.”¹¹ Richard's behavior creates confusion and ambiguity and thus provides an atmosphere conducive to his own ends.

Anne's behavior in the wooing scene is consistent with that of Low Mach personalities who “personalize the situation and respond primarily from an emotional-ethical orientation. They become so engrossed with the particular person or content they are dealing with that they get carried away and neglect to manipulate, implicitly assuming that fair play will prevail.”¹² Except for the coyness of her final remarks in the scene, Anne engages in no manipulations. She is highly emotional, deeply involved in Richard as a person; and she is quite caught up in the notions of justice and fair play.

II

What happens, then, when High meets Low? “High Machs manipulate more, win more, are persuaded less, persuade others more. …”¹³ Highs make out better in interpersonal bargaining when three conditions are met: (a) when the interaction is face-to-face with the other person; (b) when there is latitude for improvisation; and (c) when the situation allows the arousal of emotions (for instance, when the stakes are high). In thirteen studies in which all three of these conditions were met, Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis report that High Machs won out in all but one case. Clearly these three conditions are met in the wooing scene.

The success of the High Mach is not simply a result of his innovative and manipulative abilities; it stems in large part from his singular dedication to the achievement of an end. He may act emotional or concerned, but this never interferes with his clear pursuit of an objective. He knows “how to push the limits of the possible without breaking them.”¹⁴ The Low Mach, on the other hand, is easily distracted and disadvantaged by his belief that fair play and reciprocity will be observed: “… in the process of ongoing, face-to-face interaction in which participants must follow the action and improvise responses in context, without time for private reflection, low Machs can get ‘carried away’ in going along with others.”¹⁵

Contrary to the widely-held belief that the scene is psychologically implausible, then, we find that a psychological analysis of the personalities of Anne and Richard adds credibility and indicates again that Shakespeare was an astute observer of human qualities and relationships. Shakespeare created a scene in which a High Mach personality is involved in bargaining with a Low Mach personality, and the scene includes those conditions that research has shown will benefit the success of the High Mach personality. The high emotionality of the scene, stemming from Anne's intense hatred, has for some, no doubt, detracted from the plausibility of Richard's success. Yet is is within situations of high emotionality that the High Mach has greatest advantage.

III

A number of research studies have supported a two-component theory of emotion.¹⁶ According to this theory, in order for a person to experience emotion, two conditions must be satisfied: (a) the person must be physiologically aroused, and (b) the situation must be such that an emotional label can be attached to this arousal. If a person is physiologically aroused, say through injection of a drug, but the situation is not one the individual can label as emotion-arousing, he may feel as if he were emotional but not actually experience emotion. If the person is in an emotional situation but no physiological changes occur, he does not experience emotion. Similar physiological symptoms can lead to different emotional states, depending entirely upon the situation in which the individual finds himself. Thus emotions such as fear, hate, love, or joy may stem from the same or similar physiological changes, with the distinct emotion experienced depending upon the situation and a person's interpretation of it.

The wooing scene opens with the funeral procession for Anne's father-in-law. Anne is physiologically aroused and a label is easily at hand for this arousal: grief, in combination with hatred for the person responsible for the grief. Anne therefore experiences emotion. As Richard enters, Anne can easily attach the label “hatred” to her arousal and experience that emotion. If we hypothesize that later in the scene as Anne is softening toward Richard she is still physiologically aroused, what emotion would she then experience? The dead Henry has been temporarily forgotten, and Richard has diffused her intense hatred. Is it possible for a new emotional label to be attached to her feelings at that point? Could she then experience attraction for Richard—even love?

Elaine Walster has developed a theory of love, based on the two-component theory of emotion, which may answer this question.

We would suggest that perhaps it does not really matter how one produces an agitated state in an individual. Stimuli that usually produce sexual arousal, gratitude, anxiety, guilt, loneliness, hatred, jealousy, or confusion may all increase one's physiological arousal, and thus increase the intensity of his emotional experience. As long as one attributes his agitated state to passion, he should experience true passionate love. As soon as he ceases to attribute his tumultuous feelings to passion, love should die.¹⁷

It is certainly not uncommon in literature for the emotions of fear, hate, love, and jealousy to be closely associated, one leading to another. Walster quotes an intriguing remark from the work of an early psychologist, H. T. Finck:

Love can only be excited by strong and vivid emotion, and it is almost immaterial whether these emotions are agreeable or disagreeable. The Cid wooed the proud heart of Diana Ximene, whose father he had slain, by shooting one after another of her pet pigeons. Such persons as arouse in us only weak emotions or none at all, are obviously least likely to incline us toward them. … Our aversion is most likely to be bestowed on individuals who, as the phrase goes, are neither ‘warm’ nor ‘cold’; whereas impulsive, choleric people, though they may readily offend us, are just as capable of making us warmly attached to them.¹⁸

Providing support for this theory is an unpublished study in which male subjects, who were led to believe they would soon receive electrical shock and were therefore presumably aroused because of this expectation, rated an attractive young woman to whom they were introduced as more likable and friendly than did a control group of subjects not expecting to receive electrical shock.¹⁹ The results suggest that an individual physiologically aroused may attribute his arousal, at least in part, to his reaction to another person.

But this does not explain why Anne later in the scene is sufficiently attracted to Richard to accept his ring rather than remaining repulsed by him; for repulsion is also an aroused reaction. To explain Anne's attraction toward Richard we must assume that repulsion is no longer a viable emotion toward a person who responds with flattery and vows of love, as Richard does. An important indicator is Anne's “I would I knew thy heart” (l. 192). At this point, Anne is confused (which, according to Walster, may also lead to arousal), and from this moment on her arousal may be attributed to attraction toward Richard.

The key to the credibility of this scene is its heightened emotionality. Heightened emotion is not only a condition advantageous to the success of the Machiavellian but also a condition necessary for the final change in Anne's attitude from repulsion to attraction. Consequently, the brevity of the wooing scene does not detract from its credibility but in fact adds to it: a continued state of arousal for Anne would be untenable if the scene were more prolonged.

IV

Part of what makes Anne's conversion credible and the whole scene psychologically plausible is Anne's refusal to take Richard's life or order him to take his own. The competing psychological theories of cognitive dissonance and of self perception both lead to the same conclusion: that in light of Anne's refusal, her change in attitude is not only possible but likely.

The first theory postulates, among other things, that two incongruent attitudes (or a behavior and an attitude which are incongruent) will create a state called “cognitive dissonance.”²⁰ The discomfiture of cognitive dissonance motivates an individual to resolve an incongruity through attitude change. This theory has shown great power, not only in enabling us to interpret and predict some rather unusual laboratory findings, but also in explaining the day-to-day rationalizations people engage in when justifying decisions.²¹

Cognitive dissonance occurs for Anne between her two speeches in the following exchanges:

richard
Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
anne
Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!
richard
.....Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,
Which if thou please to hide in this true breast
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke
And humbly beg the death upon my knee.
Nay, do not pause: for I did kill King Henry—
But ’twas thy beauty that provokèd me.
Nay, now dispatch: ’twas I that stabbed young Edward—
But ’twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
Take up the sword again, or take up me.
anne
Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy death,
I will not be thy executioner.

(ll. 149-50, 174-86)

If Anne could bring herself to kill Richard, her attitudes, feelings, and behavior would be consonant and no cognitive dissonance would occur; but she cannot, nor can she directly order him to kill himself. Cognitive dissonance is therefore created, and Anne's attitude toward Richard must change to resolve this dissonance. As Richard says, she must “Take up the sword again, or take up me.”

Daryl Bem has proposed a self-perception theory that explains many of the findings in the studies of cognitive dissonance, and does so without recourse to the hypothetical “dissonance reduction.”²² When an individual makes a statement in a context that is free from force or inducement, we tend to credit him with the stated belief. If the individual is induced to make the statement, however, by being coerced or rewarded in some manner, we question whether the statement reflects his true attitude. According to Bem's theory, the individual proceeds in the same way; he observes his behavior and its context, and he formulates his attitudes accordingly. Anne's refusal to kill Richard or command him to kill himself in a context where such an action seems justified would suggest to observers that she is not so unfavorably disposed toward him. According to Bem's theory, Anne would soon come to the same conclusion herself on the basis of the same evidence.

The notion that behavior can cause attitudes is contrary to our usual assumption that attitudes cause behavior, but Bem has considerable empirical support for his theory. And interestingly enough, Shakespeare hints at the same hypothesis in Coriolanus. To become consul, Coriolanus is urged by his mother and friends to lie and obsequiously present himself before the tribunes. He says,

I will not do’t,
Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth
And by my body's action teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.

(III. ii. 120-23)

Which is a poetic way of saying that “behavior and the conditions under which it occurs are one of the major foundations of an individual's beliefs and attitudes. And, although the cognitive, emotional, and social factors also have their effect, it remains true that changing an individual's behavior is one of the ways of causing change in his beliefs and attitudes. His new behavior provides a source from which he draws a new set of inferences about what he feels and believes.”²³ But an “individual's inferences about his beliefs may be based not only on acts he performs but also on alternative acts he rejects.”²⁴ By rejecting the alternative of killing Richard, Anne puts herself in a position where her feelings toward him must change.²⁵ Thus the very crux of the scene, according to both the theories of cognitive dissonance and of self perception, is in Anne's refusal to take Richard's life. It is after this refusal that Anne's attitude must and does change, and Richard's success is assured.

In summary, we find much in the way of psychological evidence that lends credibility to the wooing scene. The personalities of Richard and Anne are of such a nature that Richard enjoys an advantage from the start. Anne's hatred of Richard and the untimely situation in which the wooing occurs create ambiguity, confusion, and, most importantly, an atmosphere of charged emotionality which not only favors Richard, the Machiavellian, but also makes possible Anne's rapid shift from detestation to acceptance of his suit. Anne's failure to “Take up the sword” creates an emotional condition favorable to just that change in her feelings which Richard—with the skill, innovation, and sense of timing of the Machiavellian—can mold into complete surrender.

Notes

1. All Shakespeare quotations are from The Pelican Shakespeare, rev., ed. Alfred Harbage (London: Penguin, 1969). Unless otherwise indicated the line references are to the “wooing” scene (I. ii).

2. William Winter, Shakespeare on the Stage, 1st series (New York: B. Blom, 1911, reissued, 1969), p. 108.

3. Harold C. Goddard observes: “Indeed, a time like our own that has out-Machiavelled Machiavelli has turned into sober realism much in this play that to a reader of forty years ago sounded like sheer invention” (The Meaning of Shakespeare, I [1951; rpt. Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1960], p. 36).

4. Wolfgang Clemen, A Commentary on Shakespeare's Richard III, trans. Jean Bonheim (London: Methuen, 1968), p. 23.

5. Arnold Edinborough, “Stratford, Ontario—1967,” SQ, 18 (1967), 401.

6. Clemen, p. 29.

7. Clarence V. Boyer calls Richard “the perfect Machiavellian” (The Villain as Hero in Elizabethan Tragedy [New York: E. P. Dutton, 1914], pp. 79, 221).

8. Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis, Studies in Machiavellianism (New York: Academic Press, 1970). The development of the Mach scales and the research discussed in this paper may be found in this work. For a briefer and less technical introduction to the topic see Richard Christie, “The Machiavellis Among Us,” Psychology Today, 4 (Nov. 1970), 82-86.

9. Christie and Geis, p. 17.

10. Ralph V. Exline, et al., “Visual Interaction in Relation to Machiavellianism and an Unethical Act,” in Christie and Geis, pp. 53-75.

11. Christie and Geis, p. 159.

12. Ibid., pp. 160, 304.

13. Ibid., p. 312.

14. Christie and Geis., p. 303.

15. Ibid., p. 302.

16. For a thorough discussion of the theory and supporting research see Stanley Schachter, “The Interaction of Cognitive and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, I, ed. Leonard Berkowitz (New York: Academic Press, 1964), 49-80. A brief introduction to the theory can be found in Elaine Walster, “Passionate Love,” in Theories of Attraction and Love, ed. B. I. Murstein (New York: Springer, 1971), pp. 85-99.

17. Walster, pp. 90-91 (original in italics).

18. H. T. Finck, Romantic Love and Personal Beauty: Their Development, Causal Relations, Historic and National Peculiarities (London: Macmillan, 1891), p. 240. Cited by Walster, p. 91.

19. Jack W. Brehm, et al., “Psychological Arousal and Interpersonal Attraction,” cited by Walster.

20. The theory was developed by Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press., 1957). For a brief, highly readable statement of the theory by one of its prominent spokesmen see Elliot Aronson, “The Rationalizing Animal,” Psychology Today, 6 (May 1973), 46-52.

21. Research supporting this conclusion is Ira J. Firestone's “Insulted and Provoked: The Effects of Choice and Provocation on Hostility and Aggression,” in The Cognitive Control of Motivation, ed. Philip G. Zimbardo (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1969), pp. 229-50.

22. An outline of this theory and references to the studies mentioned may be found in Daryl J. Bem, “Self-Perception Theory,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, VI, ed. Leonard Berkowitz (New York: Academic Press, 1972).

23. Daryl J. Bem, Beliefs, Attitudes, and Human Affairs (Belmont, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1970), p. 66.

24. 24. Bem, p. 17.

25. Besides the considerable change in Anne's attitude after her rejection of this alternative, critics (e.g., Clemen, pp. 27-28) have commented on the change in her form of address from the contemptuous use of “thou” and “thy” to the more polite “you” and “your.” This change takes place beginning with “Well, well, put up your sword” (l. 197), which is her final resolution that she can not be responsible for his death.