Recently I had the opportunity to see my old high school preform The King and I on stage, complete with excellent acting and harmonic musical numbers. While the theatrics were top notch, the cast also did an excellent job conveying to the audience the various themes the play had to offer, one of which I have always been particularly passionate about: Knowledge. But what exactly is The King and I? Who originally composed it? What were it's origins? These questions are good ones but outside my scope of knowledge, so I went to Wikipedia for a quick reference, and here is what I found:
"The King and I is a musical, the fifth by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and dramatistOscar Hammerstein II. It is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon, which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. The musical's plot relates the experiences of Anna, a British schoolteacher hired as part of the King's drive to modernize his country. The relationship between the King and Anna is marked by conflict through much of the piece, as well as by a love that neither can admit. The musical premiered on March 29, 1951, at Broadway's St. James Theatre. It ran nearly three years, then the fourth longest-running Broadway musical in history, and has had many tours and revivals."
So Anna, a British woman, becomes the teacher to the children of the King of Siam. This position in the King's palace implies many things which are not said outright in the play. Because the whole state rests squarely on the King's shoulders, he is responsible for the lives of everyone in his kingdom, all of whom think the King is all-knowing. The King, painfully aware of this, hires Anna to instill in his children (and secretly in himself) the advanced science of the Western World. The King, trapped in a paradoxical situation, has to struggle with his people believing in his infinite wisdom, but also has to deal with the fact that he is painfully ignorant. While battling this internal conflict, the King is suddenly inspired with a balled of introspection, a verse of which runs thus:
"There are times I almost think
I am not sure of what I absolutely know
Very often find confusion
In conclusion, I concluded long ago"
If only the King knew just how wise he was being in knowing he did not know everything. Was it not Socrates who said: "Then the wise or temperate man, and only he, will know himself, and be able to examine what he knows or does not know, and see what others know and what they think they know and do really know, and what they do not know and fancy that they know when they do not.... And this is wisdom and temperance and self-knowledge -- for a man to know what he knows, and what he does not know. [The opposite of wisdom is, thus, to fancy that you know what you do not know (166c-d) because you are unable to distinguish between knowledge and ignorance.]"
The King, in questioning his knowledge, was on the road to wisdom. He came to the same conclusions Socrates did, and he arranged a plan for modernizing Siam by becoming wiser himself, teaching his children, and collecting wise advisors like Anna (although this advisory relationship was hidden). Because the King knows his ignorant condition, he is far better equipped to deal with the British ambassador when he came knocking. Without Anna's help, the King would have embarrassed himself in the eyes of the nations. In the end, the King becomes incapable of pretending omnipotence, and becomes fatally sick. Before his death, the King pronounces his young son, to be the new King. His son, was this whole time under the tutelage of Anna, and thus it was that his son, having learned much about British science, became the new King, and was able to govern Siam with what he learned from Anna. Again, the King acted wiser than he thought.
I have seen your writing improve greatly! Best post yet!
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