The Francis Reflex and a Necessary Summing Up

After they had robbed their own pals and mocked the boastful Falstaff, Prince Henry and Poins disappeared in the thickets, each on his path, with an understanding that they would meet again at the "Boar's Head" tavern. Poins is now waiting for his royal friend in one of the inn's rooms. The latter finally makes his appearance, much later than he was expected to, laughing his guts out; he could use somebody's help to go on laughing - says he. He has just spent some time in the wine cellar, indulging in the illusion that he was making conversation to three inn helpers: Tom, Dick, and Francis. He was actually probing into their ways of thinking and expressing themselves. To his amusement, he has seen that their work prevails so much, that beside three or four stereotype phrases they have found to be of use in their line of work, the three boys are virtually incapable of expressing anything else. Prince Henry now offers to prove his finding to Ned Poins: "PRINCE HENRY: [.] But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee, do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar; [it was customary, at the time, to serve sugar to the customers, so they may pick at something between swallows] and do thou never leave calling 'Francis', that his tale to me may be nothing but 'Anon'. Step aside, and I'll show thee a precedent " ( King Henry IV , Part I - Act II, scene IV).

The general idea, therefore, is that of an experiment supposed to prove that should anyone call out loud "Francis!", there is only one possible answer he or she could get, and that is "Anon!" Moreover, for such an experiment to work as smoothly as can be, its conditions are being checked in a general rehearsal beforehand: "POINS: Francis! - PRINCE HENRY: Thou art perfect. - POINS: Francis! (Exit POINS. Enter FRANCIS.) - FRANCIS: Anon, anon, sir. Look down into the Pomgarnet, Ralph. [The tavern rooms bore names.] - PRINCE HENRY: Come hither, Francis. - FRANCIS: My lord? - PRINCE HENRY: How long hast thou to serve, Francis? - FRANCIS: Forsooth, five years, and as much as to. - POINS [Within]: Francis! - FRANCIS: Anon, anon, sir. - PRINCE HENRY: Five year! By'r lady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture and show it a fair pair of heels and run from it? - FRANCIS: O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in England , I could find in my heart. - POINS [Within]: Francis! - FRANCIS: Anon, sir. - PRINCE HENRY: How old art thou, Francis? - FRANCIS: Let me see. about Michaelmas next I shall be. - POINS [Within]: Francis! - FRANCIS: Anon, sir. Pray stay a little, my lord. - PRINCE HENRY: Nay, but hark you, Francis: for the sugar thou gavest me, 'twas a pennyworth, wast't not? - FRANCIS: O Lord, I would it had been two! - PRINCE HENRY: I will give thee for it a thousand pound: ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it. - POINS [Within]: Francis! - FRANCIS: Anon, anon. - PRINCE HENRY: Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis; or, Francis, o' Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But, Francis! - FRANCIS: My lord? - PRINCE HENRY: Wilt thou rob this leathern jerkin, crystal-button, not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch. - FRANCIS: O Lord, sir, who do you mean? - PRINCE HENRY: Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink; for look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully: in Barbary , sir, it cannot come to so much. - FRANCIS: What, sir? - POINS [Within]: Francis! - PRINCE HENRY: Away, you rogue! dost thou not hear them call? (Here they both call him; the drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go.)" ( ibidem ).

For the experiment to succeed, Prince Hal drives the boy into an intimate conversation, starting from the subjective aspect of his job (the harsh years of apprenticeship) and encouraging him to rebel and thus regain his freedom. Moreover, he tickles the youth's ears with the tempting perspective of a fabulous, undeserved earning, then, at the last moment, he starts talking nonsensically, so as to definitely muddle up the credulous Francis who is already torn in half between his duty and his dreams. What does he manage to prove with all this? That no matter how beautiful man's dreams are, his second nature, automatism, steps in and tears the subject in half to assert itself.

But is it not true that this automatism was given a specific name within the field of psychology early in the 20 th century? Is it not true that its studying has changed the very basis of the understanding of the psychic? Do we not recognize in it Pavlov's conditioned response, that indeed conquered America in a shorter time and with a higher intensity than Dostoyevsky's thought?

The Russian scientist's earliest researches focused on the physiology of glands, the salivary ones especially. He invented and developped specific methods for the analysis of the influence upon salivation of certain factors alien to the process of feeding. In other words, he made a tuning fork vibrate simultaneously with presenting a dog with its food. With the repetition of this double action at regular intervals, after a certain time the same number of saliva drops could be seen dripping from the dog's mouth at the mere sound of the tuning fork, even in the absence of the food that had initially caused the animal to salivate. This phenomenon was called conditioned response. A behaviourist, Lashley, published an article on the human salivary reflex and its benefits for psychology, in which he described the same method being applied with similar results to human beings by using chocolate bonbons as tempting factors - a fatal malice with regard to his female subjects, if any. Caron went beyond the domain of nutrition and proved that the sound in itself could cause a reflex of the eye-pupil if it regularly accompanied, for a given time, a sudden burst of light ( the conditioned pupilary response and the conditioned eye-lid response ). Chocolate returned into focus when Mateer analyzed the child's behaviour (this is the very title of his book) by placing a chocolate on a child's tongue and simultaneously touching its arm. Counting the chocolates swallowed by the subjects until salivation was caused by the mere touch led to the measuring of intelligence. These experiments speak precisely enough about the capacity of adaptation to the environment, especially as one could notice that the child who learned the reflex sooner was also the one that forgot it sooner after it was no longer rewarded with the chocolate it longed so much for. The point of view of the American school of psychology gradually prevailed, namely that any learning implies the creation of a conditioned response. Nowadays' programmed learning is but the same tendency improved and diversified.

Resuming Pavlov's theory that turns words into stimuli, another behaviourist, Holt, stressed the fact that words, acting as substitutes of actual occurrences, trigger the same reactions as the occurrences themselves would. He maintained that the "meaning" of a word were but the conditioned response to that particular word or, to put it otherwise, the meaning of a word were but the behaviour suggested by the designated object, a behaviour acquired as a conditioned response.

An important distinction is to be noticed, between the passive habitudes of speech, that is, the reaction to words and the active habitudes of speech, or use of words.

Finally, Watson demonstrated that the natural tendency may be modified by creating a conditioned response. In this major discovery we see a perfect explanation for the theory advanced by William Shakespeare (which, however, does not coincide with Prince Henry's; we will return to this matter very soon). What was his experiment? A number of children under the age of one were shown various domestic animals. Their impulse was to reach out to touch the animals. In no case could one detect any symptom of fear. Later, the sight of the animals was accompanied by a loud, sudden noise. Through repetition, a conditioned response of fear was generated at the sight of the animal, even in the absence of the noise. Moreover, the reaction was also noticeable in connection with anything covered in fur.

To return to Francis now, his natural impulses were supressed and replaced by the verbal reaction "Anon!" - "Coming!", as he would say today - each and every time he was requested to wait on a customer. Hence, a conditioned response. A number of psychological circumstances have contributed to it: his wish to end up his apprenticeship, so he may have a trade, his fear of the inn-keeper representing the human element that could have hindered his social achievement, his horror of impoverishment, of loneliness, of incapacitation, plus other personal reasons we have no knowledge of.

The Prince, however, presents the case in other terms, for he is a spokesman of the ruling class: he claims to analyze the alleged stupidity of a given professional category. Upon entering the room where Poins awaits him, Hal is being asked: "POINS: Where hast been, Hal? - PRINCE HENRY: With three or four loggerheads amongst three or four score hogsheads. I have sounded the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but the prince of Wales, yet I am king of courtesy [.]. They call drinking deep, dyeing scarlet; and when you breathe in your watering, they cry 'hem!' and bid you play it off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. " ( King Henry IV , Part I - Act II, scene IV). He then adds that in all their lives those boys " .never spake other English [.] than 'Eight shillings and sixpence' and 'You are welcome', with this shrill addition, 'Anon, anon, sir! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-Moon', or so. " ( ibidem - one should remember, once again, that the Elizabethan tavern rooms bore names).

Prince Henry presents the case in his capacity as a king's son, who allows himself anything; yet the test he submits Francis to is of no lesser value when it comes to demonstrate the conditioned response obtained. One should remember that the earliest results of the introduction of tests in psychology were published by Cattell in 1896 (Cattell & Farrand, Physical and Mental Measurements of the Students of Columbia University ). It is true that the test Francis is being submitted to is not conceived as a test. But it is one, nonetheless. Moreover, it does not confine itself to a mere verbal association, but to a behavioural one as well (a behavioural association, as it were): as quoted above, Francis excuses himself from the Prince's company in order to react from a behavioural point of view, that is, to wait on another customer. What is being brought to light here is the dominant generated by "habitude", by "routine", by "automatism", namely the impact of social activity upon one's personality.

In 1900, Müller and Pilzecker studied another psychical phenomenon richly illustrated in the fragment we have analyzed so far - interference. It implies the decrease of efficiency of a certain activity when one is concerned with other activities. If Francis proves unable to develop his thoughts at Prince Hal's suggestions, which the latter misinterprets for a sign of the drawer's lack of intelligence, it is because of the interferences Poins is responsible of. Such a psychical phenomenon may appear with any normal human being, especially when working.

All these theories were unknown to the English playwright. Had his work been studied more profoundly, however, they would have been known to psychology earlier.

We will now pass on to a brief survey of what has already been argued, with a shift of stress that is supposed to bring forward the role of dychotomic-antonymical thinking in the Great Will's work.

*

Hamlet's attitude towards the murder not yet exposed that has occurred in his family springs from two simultaneously opposed tendencies: he wishes to leave such dreadful incident behind, but, at the same time, he wishes to let it out, for everybody to know. As we have already mentioned, the gloomy Prince both wants and does not want to be reminded: his behaviour appears nonsensical, from a logical point of view.

In order to be mindful and observe Claudius' reaction to what is going on on the stage, Hamlet needs, as he explains Horatio, to act as if he were mindless. Indeed, to throw somebody off guard, one must pretend to be after a purpose exactly opposed to the one actually followed; this technique seems to be intricately associated to the instinct of preservation, as it is to that of hunting. And yet, no matter how used one gets to it, there is something in its essence that makes one shiver: how can a man act one way and think the opposite way? This shatters the image one builds up in one's mind about the unity and integrity of the human being; for what it is worth, it obviously conflicts with the linearity of logical thinking.

The term hobby-horse , as we have seen, has a double meaning in the context in which it appears: something of no consequence and something so important as to have ruined an entire stronghold. Isn't it strange!

Claudius and Polonius, in their capacity as "legal spies", are both present and not present during Hamlet's meeting with Ophelia. To themselves, to the Queen, to the counsellor's daughter, they are present; to Hamlet, they are not. Hence, a man's presence both is and is not a fact, in relationship to another man's awareness. This is obvious; when we realize, however, that it assigns the person in question two simultaneously opposed attributes, we cannot help wondering.

From the way Polonius makes up what he lets the ruling family know, one might say that he is in fact persuaded of the Prince's mental sanity. Nothing prevents him, however, from suggesting that Hamlet could be "granted to be mad". The very thought that one could possibly say that something were exactly different from what it actually is exceeds the canons of judgment. The same fate awaits the drunkard Sly.

In both the counsellor's and King Claudius' interpretations, "honesty" turns out to mean "dishonesty": the King decides loudly that Hamlet would henceforward live in exile, but aside he decides the prince would die.

Hamlet on the other hand, though in his right mind, presents himself to his beloved's father as being rather weak-minded. This capacity of man to take over a role, to embody the very appearance denied by his heart, calls for disguise, with the whole range of faked behaviours it entails. In his father-and-son game with Falstaff, Prince Henry feels free to adopt a careless and jocularly non-committed way of being; the same Prince displays his true qualities of son and heir when summoned before his father's throne. At the tavern, however, he is a servant, a thief among thieves and a matchless liar (for the sake of revealing the lie). The truly honest nobles set a dishonest trap to Parolles who, in his turn, has two faces: the one fit for his boastful thinking and the one fit for the cowardice brought forth through his comrades-in-arms' stratagem. The reversed presentation of the true state of facts has the same impact on the human soul as truth itself, for it is considered to be the truth that acquires, hence, a new configuration, one antonymical to the genuine one. We remember that Benedick read a "double meaning" in the words he spoke to Beatrice.

All these peculiarities create a rich subject-matter for the comedies to pick from. In The Taming of the Shrew , enemies are friends, servants are masters, strangers are fathers, the sons invent fathers for themselves, the alleged "shrew" is the embodiment of kindness, the subdued Bianca is a rebel, men are women, the sun is the moon, old age is bright youth, the roasted lamb is repulsive, the wedding is its own take-off, swearing is like a nightingale's song, moroseness like a smile of dawn, grumpy muteness like cooing, banishment - a call, refuse - an acceptance.

Miranda falls asleep when ordered, but it is not her sleep, it is induced. Caliban feels the stinging of non-existent bugs.