Comparing Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

“Is there a choice” (Stoppard 43)? Based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Stoppard’s tragicomedy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, expands on the existential queries of two naive minor characters from Hamlet. In the opening act of Stoppard’s play, the pair are wandering aimlessly through a forest until they encounter an unusual group of travelling actors, known as the Tragedians. Led by an ominous character named the Player, the Tragedians reenact various scenarios for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The clever Player engages the two in different gambles, including one in which Rosencrantz eventually circumvents him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern become further unsettled after being summoned to Elsinore by King Claudius to ascertain the root of

When given the opportunity to seize their fates, Guildenstern advises that he and Rosencrantz “tread wearily, follow instructions” (40). Despite Rosencrantz’s sentiment that he “feels like a spectator, a very appauling business” (41), Guildenstern insists that “they’ve got us placed now” (41). With the inherent mindset of minor characters, the two immediately allow themselves to fall victim to the fixated infallibility of becoming passive to the hands of fate. Furthermore, they rapidly become comforted by their reality, as Guildenstern states that “there’s a logic at work-it’s all done for you, don’t worry [...] To be taken in hand and led, like being a child again [...] it’s like being given a prize” (40). With the view that there are no means of escaping probability, the two immediately accept the apathetic role of being minor characters in their own lives. The two are inexplicably comforted by the fact that they refuse to adapt an active role in their own futures, as Guildenstern finds his indifference to be “a fine persecution-to be kept intrigued without ever being enlightened” (41). While fully acknowledging their reality as an affliction, they view it as a fine one, embracing the fact that they will remain only partially informed of their

When the Player accompanies the pair on their mission to serve the king, Guildenstern says “we only know what we’re told, and that’s little enough. And for all we know it isn’t even true” (66). Rather than challenging his curiosity and assumptions, Guildenstern professes that he would prefer to remain subservient to the whims of others. This passivity persists as he reiterates, “ we have been left so much to our own devices- after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other people’s” (66). Ironically, whenever the pair is left to their own devices, they choose to remain subject to their circumstances. Evidently, Stoppard portrays minor characters as being content in their state of obedience and