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Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

680 Words3 Pages

In life human beings try to control almost every aspect. That can go all the way down to what shoes they wear to what the rest of their life looks like. That control is not something that human beings can really have even though conceptually they believe they have it. Tom Stoppard in his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, explores the idea of control. This play is based off of Shakspeare's Hamlet, and turns two of his mediocre characters into the main characters. Stoppard using the dialogue and lives of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to show how humans truly have no control of their lives. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are depicted as being literal beings who believe everything must happen for a reason. The play opens with the two characters …show more content…

When Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were presented in front of Claudius and told what their role to Hamlet was to be they freely accepted. Accepting the fact that they would help Gertrude and Claudius figure out what was wrong with Hamlet by tricking him. Rosencrantz finds grave issue with this but Guildenstern does not. Guildenstern says, "We've been caught up. Your smallest action set off another somewhere else, and is set off by it. Keep an eye open, and ear cocked. Tread warily, follow instructions. We'll be alright" (page 16). Guildenstern is convincing Rosencrterz that their decision to stay and help was ultimately unavoidable. The idea that one thing led to another which resulted in them being there. His words of wisdom to Rosencretz take on the image of someone excepting their fate. Instead of looking at what is going on and seeing how ultimately it is his own choice to stay. Guildenstern sees this as something else at play controlling the ultimate outcome. It is this unwillingness to recognize that perhaps this is his life to live which ever way he wishes, but something someone else has power over. In making the decision to stay it is not that he does it because he wants to but because something else is controlling the ultimate decision. This idea of control is morphed into something else entirely. Instead of it having control over just the logical and how things

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For starters nobody even knows which is Rosencrantz and which is Guildenstern. Not the audience, not the supporting characters, not the director, not even themselves! There are many time throughout the film where one refers to himself as Rosencrantz and to the other as Guildenstern and then turns around as says it the other way. Or when R&G were called in to speak with the King and Queen and are called names that may or may not even belong to them at all! And my favorite scene: in the garden where (the one usually considered)

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When The two main characters first come across The Player, many philosophical ideas are exchanged. The Player seems to have better understanding of the world around him, and he attempts to bestow this knowledge on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Stoppard has The Player to show that there are some people who are able to make their own decisions and better understand life. The only problem is the two do not seem to understand or accept The Player’s logic. The Player believes all people are artists, while Rosencrantz thinks they are gentlemen.

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One of them gets impassioned to make decisions about their plans. However, most of the time, they are very “indifferent” (23) and “have no desires” (17). Both of them make several references to how they are “entitled to some direction” and would rather someone make decisions for them. They doubt themselves and whether or not they honestly have a choice (43). Rosencrantz is even shown to understand Hamlet’s plight during the play, but never make any actions based on that understanding.

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However, Guildenstern begins to ponder whether their own actions actually have an effect on the outcome of their story. When one of the players asks the pair if they have spoken to Hamlet, Rosencrantz responds saying, "It's possible," immediately followed by Guildenstern responding, "But it wouldn't make a difference," (116). Stoppard seems to posit that total freedom is not easily

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Thus, Rosencrantz cannot tell the difference between the real and the theatrical Rosencrantz because they are so similarity portrayed. Furthermore, Guildenstern states that no one believes a staged death, while the Player claims otherwise. Guildenstern is firm in his belief that theatre cannot show death, but the Player asserts that the only thing that will “awe” and convince the reader is a theatrical death. To convince the best friends, the Player stages his own death where he makes it seem as though Rosencrantz has stabbed him in the chest with his sword.

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