(Movie) Anna and the King: A Reaction Paper and Personal Analysis of the King’s Philosophy

I submitted this to my teacher as a partial fulfillment of the course Philosophical – Social Foundation of Education:

     King Mongkut in the film Anna and the King was a humanist. Humanists believed that “an individual human being had within him or her all that was necessary to grow and develop that person’s unique capacities”.  That was basically how he educated his children, especially his eldest son and heir to the throne, Prince Chulalongkorn. He gave the prince the opportunity to learn, in his own pace, the values and character needed of a king. As a father to 48 children, he wanted them to learn values, developed their own capacities and worth as members of the royal family. He recognized their talents, as on the scene with him happily observing his daughter dancing. He let them learn the arts, theater and music and then watched their plays. Not only did he make sure that the conditions of learning were humane but also that they were educated with Science, English, and Literature. He did not deprive them of these subjects no matter how strong the influence of religion and conservationism were in their culture. This implied that he wanted them to open their minds to the realities of the world, not just within the boundaries of the Siamese kingdom. Hiring a foreign teacher was also a proof to that. This character of him was humanistic in nature, that “even as science pushed back the boundaries of the known, man’s sense of wonder was continually renewed, and art, poetry, and music found their places along with religion and ethics”.

     The greatest evidence of King Mungkut’s humanistic nature as king was the trial of Tuptim, his latest wife. He let her get punished, though he was not sold out to the idea of death and humiliation as punishment, for the sake of morality and ethics, so that his other wives would always remember that it was unethical and immoral and should not be repeated. It also discouraged his subjects/citizens to do immoral and unethical actions. He placed the end of moral action in the welfare of humanity rather than in fulfilling the will of God, or in his case, Buddha. Anna even reasoned out to him that death was not the way of Buddha. Still, he did not do something to save Tuptim. I thought of it as because he placed morality in the welfare of his people than let religious convictions overpower him and his people.

Note: I enclosed in a double opening-closing quote the definition of humanism because I copied that from an online encyclopedia I can’t place which.