Category: Actions

The word “king” makes you think of people in charge, like leaders and high-ranking people. But leadership really isn’t about a certain position; just because someone owns the title of a leader, like the title of king or president, does not mean that person has the qualities necessary to be able to lead people. So, when confronted with the question “would Hamlet have been a good king?” I would say he would not have been suitable for the position of ruler.

One of the reasons Hamlet would not make for a good king is because he does not act. Hamlet’s constant uncertainty is not a good trait for a leader. He did more talking about what he was going to do but never put his thoughts into any action. All great leaders show confidence. They inspire others; they don’t consistently contemplate what course of action they are going to take. A king is the executor and is in charge of making decisions. He has the ability to be decisive which, as we have seen, Hamlet was the opposite of. When a crisis arises, a king is not drowned by indecision because he has already determined the proper course of action he will take. Some may view Hamlet as being very careful in making serious decisions. While Hamlet wants to get revenge for his father’s death, he wants to be sure that Claudius is guilty. So, we can see that Hamlet does not make rash decisions. While this may can be perceived as a good trait for a king, Hamlet struggles too much with moral integrity and the need for revenge and takes way too long to make a final decision. Hamlet lacked the experience and level of maturity necessary for a king.

At the end of Hamlet Horatio and Fortinbras were the two characters who remained alive. I believe Shakespeare left the character of Horatio alive because he was the only one who knew all the facts that occurred from the time the ghost first appeared up until the final scene of the play. Horatio promised that he would tell the full story in good time, but by the end of the play, the audience already knew all the facts so there was no need for an explanation by another person. The character of Fortinbras was used to establish that Hamlet’s death was one of honor. In this way, Shakespeare was able to convey to the audience that Hamlet’s reputation would remain in good standing and that he died a respectable death. Fortinbras spoke the closing words in the play because it was most likely, with Hamlet’s designation, he would become the King of Denmark. Hamlet says while dying,

“O, I die, Horatio;

The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit:

I cannot live to hear the news from England;

But I do prophesy the election lights

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;

So, tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,

Which have solicited. The rest is silence.” (5.2.390)

In his words, Hamlet nominates Fortinbras to be the king. Fortinbras has the closing words of the play so that his words leave an impact on the audience. Fortinbras’ closing words,

“Let four captains

Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage;

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have proved most royal; and, for his passage,

The soldiers’ music and the rites of war

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot”. (5.2.445)

Shakespeare’s message in Hamlet regarding action vs. inaction appears to be to not overanalyze things. When a person overthinks a situation sometimes they never come to a point of final decision. Also, it isn’t good to act too quickly. A situation requires a little thought but thinking about it excessively isn’t good because action should take place in a good time frame. In the play Hamlet could have killed Claudius at an appropriate time; he procrastinated way too much. Shakespeare could be implying that there is uncertainty in everything. We can never be absolutely, positively sure of the outcome of our actions until we take action, and the same for inaction. People will always encounter circumstances in which they will need to make hard decisions. The situations require a fair amount of thought and then a decision to either take an action or do nothing. Shakespeare doesn’t know the answer to the question of action vs. inaction, he simply provided us with a way of exploring it for ourselves through his genius writing. We all need to make our own decisions on issues that arise in our lives, but as we can see, both action and inaction have consequences.

Hamlet’s inaction in carrying out his duty for revenge is one of the most transparent aspects of the entire play. A clear contrast is created between the task Hamlet is given by the ghost, and his own values, which creates a perpetuated ambiguity about whether or not Hamlet will act [not sure whether to add quotes/analysis here]. The true source of his procrastination is that his morals do not allow him to carry through with the murder which is evident through; “why yet I live to say “this thing’s to do” sith I have cause and will and strength and means to do it”. A paradox is created as Hamlet is shown to be aware of his own inaction. The polysyndeton of “cause and will and strength and means” emphasizes the corruption of Denmark that Hamlet lives in; and all the reasons that prompt him to carry out his revenge. Furthermore, the cyclical nature of Hamlet’s final soliloquy, ending with “my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth” implies further inaction. By swearing to his ‘thoughts’ rather than ‘actions’, Hamlet shows that he is unable to break the cycle due to his morality, which impedes him from acting on his revenge. According to the critic Goethe, Hamlet is given a task by the ghost, which is “too heavy for his soul to bear”. This can be seen in the rhetorical question; “And shall I couple hell? O fie! Hold, Hold, my heart…”. This shows Hamlet’s consideration of letting go of his morals for the sake of revenge, however, the exclamation of “Hold, hold, my heart” shows that he cannot go through with revenge because of his morality. Therefore, it is evident that Hamlet’s morality disallows him from avenging his father’s death, highlighting the futility of morality among corruption and creating an ambiguous conflict between opposing ideals.

Gauging and understanding someone’s personality when you first meet them may seem like a daunting thing to do for some people, especially when it feels like one wrong move could make it harder to get to know them. Many times, it also feels like one sitting isn’t enough to fully understand someone’s personality. Personality is a fluid aspect of our lives, something that is constantly changing and growing, but something that may not change is the methods you have in order to learn more about someone’s personality. Many people, myself included, may use the same techniques each time they meet someone new in order to dull down any nerves and make learning about someone new more exciting. Throughout this paper, I will briefly explain my methods when it comes to learning about someone’s personality, discuss what clues to personality I believe people rely on the most when doing so, along with explaining why discrepancies occur between certain types of data that these clues give us.

If I was to compare my methods of getting to know someone to the clues of personality, it heavily correlates to self-judgments or S data (Funder, 2016) since I tend to directly ask the person about themselves in order to get to know them more. When wanting to know more about the personality of the person next to me, I would usually start off by asking them questions about their interests. I wouldn’t ask anything that would be considered a “deep” question, at least not when I’m first getting to know them and who they are. But by sticking to more light-hearted questions like what their favorite show is, I might be able to find a common interest between us so that the conversation strays away from being awkward.

After asking the simple questions and finding a common interest, if there is an opportunity for me to ask a more thought-provoking question that’ll help me understand a little bit more about who they are as a person, I’ll take it in hopes of learning more about who they are rather than only learning about the things they like. For example, a question I like to ask is “What do you find beautiful in life?” I’ve found that whenever I ask this question, I learn a lot more about the person than I thought I would; many times, it ends up being something that they’re passionate about and it gives me a glimpse into what they value and cherish. As mentioned before, I use the same methods whenever meeting someone new. Not only does it make me feel less nervous as I don’t have to come up with too many new starting points, but I like hearing what people have to say to the same questions and understanding different points of view when discussing deeper topics.

After reading the chapter, the two clues to personality that people most likely will rely on when first getting to know someone and their personality are S and I data. These two clues involve either directly asking the person you are getting to know or asking someone that is acquainted and familiar with them to help you learn more about them (Funder, 2016). You don’t need to have a lab, conduct an experiment, or be a personality psychologist in order to obtain either set of data, you can simply gather it by talking with someone. With S and I data, some of the biggest advantages that they share with each other are that they give you a lot of information about someone and that some of the information is “true by definition” as Funder (2016, pg. 32) puts it. S and I data can be done anywhere by anyone, making them the easiest methods to access out of the four options when it comes to getting to know somebody.

To dive into each clue of personality in more detail, I will describe each clue while providing an example of each. To start off, S data are just self-judgments about the individual’s own personality and behavior (Funder, 2016). In order to obtain S data, you can directly ask the person, gaining important information because they can give you “complex aspects of character that no other data source could access” (Funder, 2016, pg. 26). If you were a psychologist, you would give the person a questionnaire where they rank themselves on a scale of 1-9 based on certain aspects of personality, or the questions could be more open-ended in order to get a view of what the person’s goals are. There isn’t any interpretation that needs to be done when collecting S data, the information gathered is what you intended to collect, giving the data face validity (Funder, 2016). An example of S data would be if I wanted to find out if someone is a good student, I could ask how well their grades are or how much time they spend studying.

Data, on the other hand, are judgments made by acquaintances or as Funder (2016) calls them “informants” to gain knowledge about a person’s personality. The informants have to be well-acquainted with the individual, this is an important aspect of I data because it helps provide an accurate judgment of the individual being described. I data essentially works in the same way the S data do, where informants are asked the same questions and they rank the individual on a 9-point scale based on certain personality aspects (Funder, 2016). An example of data that I have experienced multiple times is when I’m meeting a friend of a friend for the first time, I ask a lot of questions in order to get a feel of who they are before meeting them. By doing so, not only do I learn just a little bit of their personality, I get a quick idea of how I should first act in order to make a good first impression and calm my nerves down.

However, there are moments when there are discrepancies in our data. Someone may describe themselves as a good listener while their acquaintances might actually say they’re just good at following along, showcasing a discrepancy between S and I data. Or someone may describe themselves as a generous person but then their behavior shows that they might have just acted generously after being told to, making this a discrepancy between S and B data, B data being behavioral observations (Funder, 2016).

There might be a discrepancy between these different types of data because of two reasons: they may not realize they behave a certain way, or they may not act the way they think they would in certain situations (Funder 2016). For example, if you asked someone what they would do if they saw a fight outbreak, they may respond that they would try and help stop it. But if the time arrives and they do witness a fight, they may remain a bystander and not do anything. Not done

When it comes to seeing discrepancies between S and I data and S and B data, I would tend to believe S data in both scenarios. I would believe S data more when it comes to picking between S and I data because S data is coming straight from the primary source. You are the only person who knows exactly what you’ve been through and how you felt during and after the situation. This can be linked to two of the advantages Funder (2016) discusses when listing S data’s advantages: since you are present throughout every situation in your life, you have an abundance of information to share. and you are the only person with access to all your intentions and feelings. While asking a friend to describe you may seem more accurate than describing yourself to some, all in all, you know yourself best.

Although I am a firm believer that actions speak louder than words, if having to decide whether to believe S or B data, I would go with believing S data as well. While getting to know someone, their words are the truest form of judgment you have because you haven’t been around them long enough to know if they are behaving as they normally would. I tend to see the best in others and hope that they are being honest with me, so I believe what they say until they may prove to me otherwise. The main reason I wouldn’t believe B data is due to a point that Funder (2016) made when discussing the advantages and disadvantages of B data: you still have to decide which behaviors to observe and interpret them. Another issue is that not everyone interprets things the same way either. For example, something that happened in my life recently was that my roommate was telling me about a boy that she was talking to, saying how he’d go to the library with her and buy her something at the café. She interpreted his actions as just him being nice, while I interpreted it thinking that he likes her.  

Guided by what was stated in the previous pages (the definition of nationalism, heroism, and humanity) it is indeed both Trinidad Tecson and Apolinario Dela Cruz made acts that fall to humanity, heroism, or nationalism. After analyzing the data gathered, the researchers were able to find that the acts of Trinidad Tecson fall mostly into the category of Heroism. As was stated above, heroism is “the desire of someone wanting to save or rescue a person who is in a state of conflict”. This act was exemplified when Trinidad Tecson established a field hospital to cure and nurse injured soldiers and organized a group of Filipino women to nurse injured Filipino Soldiers wherein she was recognized as the “Mother of Mercy”. Moreover, the problems encountered by Trinidad Tecsonm pushed her to the acts of heroism. Next to Heroism, she also did acts of Nationalism by participating in the twelve bloody battles in Bulacan, along with the popular Battle-of-Biak-na Bato wherein she would always get injured, but after she was done recovering, she would always come back to the field and fight once more for the country. This, indeed, satisfies the definition of Nationalism, which is defined as “someone’s dedication and love for their own country”.

On the other hand, Apolinario Dela Cruz falls mostly into the category of humanity. Apolinario Dela Cruz was greatly known for providing charitable works among his fellow Filipinos. Also, the main agenda of his battles and the foundation of the Cofradía de San José, which he was greatly known for, was for his fellowmen to gain equality, social justice, and religious freedom. These acts are the condition of being human, the quality of compassion for others, and kindness, which falls mainly on humanity. Next to humanity, these acts are also considered heroism for he sacrificed himself for the sake of his natives and he was recognized as the “Bayani of Quezon”. This also fits in Heroism which historians defined as “Individuals who protected and loved their people until the end of their life.” the definition of the Philippine government recognizes heroism for the acts of their sacrifices, selflessness, and immeasurable contributions. Yet, the acts of Apolinario Dela Cruz still fall mostly on humanity because, at some point, he was not able to protect his people(which falls in the category of heroism) because of some of his wrongdoings which was stated in the presentation of data.

Indeed, both heroes showed acts of nationalism, heroism, and humanity but after analyzing the information gathered and after learning how humanity, nationalism, and heroism differ from one another, we have noticed that the acts of each hero fall mostly into one category by evaluating where the majority of what they’ve done fits among these three categories, or on what category their acts exemplified; Apolinario Dela Cruz: Humanity and Trinidad Tecson: Heroism.