comment on platy within the play

The slave girl Tuptim creates a Siamese version of a book she admires, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This book would have been making a stir in America in 1862 (the year portrayed in The King and I) because it championed the cause of the abolition of slavery, an issue over which American president Abraham Lincoln was waging war with the American South (the Civil War) at the time of Anna's visit to Siam The King admires the self-taught Lincoln and his principles of freedom, so it is ironic that Tuptim's play should offend him. It does, because the King has not recognized the suffering his own brand of slavery inflicts on his wives and subjects. Tuptim intends to shock the King. Hers is a rebellious spirit, and she not only wants to escape, she wants to confront the King's hypocrisy as well. Hammerstein has Tuptim use the same technique as Shakespeare does his title character in Hamlet, although her purpose differs. Hamlet uses his play to "catch the conscience of the king" in order to entrap Claudius and justify murdering him. Tuptim's motives are less clear. She may not have had any particular plan of reprisal in mind nor realized the power of her creation until she saw the King's face. When Tuptim sees that her play has affected the King, she begins urgently to plead the cause of unhappy slaves everywhere, but the King's quick temper immediately cuts her off. The effect of the play within a play in The King and I underscores the theme of culture clash and the irony of a leader who wants to modernize his country but cannot bear to modernize himself.