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Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

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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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and Rosencrantz wonders “How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?” (2.3. 337 -341). On the other hand, the way she treated Guildenstern in the scene with suspicion was because of the ghost of his father appearing to him and revealing his killer. The prince was aware that Guildenstern was a spy for Claudius and when she says she has been send by his mother the queen “ The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.” Hamlet replies “You are welcome” using a puppet to mock her, Guildenstern replies “Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.

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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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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are uncertain of their past, puzzled by the present and blind as to the future. But if the play still works, it is because Stoppard strikes an astonishing balance between cross-talk comedy and poignant awareness

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In this passage, Hamlet warns Rosencrantz of the dangers of working with Claudius. He knows that Rosencrantz is spying on him for hopes of winning the king’s “rewards” and “authorities”. As such, he warns that Claudius will hold those favors “in the corner of his jaw”, and thus keep complete control over them rather than give them out. It is important to note that in this scene, Rosencrantz essentially confronts Hamlet for the murder of Polonius, yet Hamlet shows no signs of defensiveness. Rather, he tries to protect Rosencrantz from Claudius.

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“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is one of the more usual plays constructed by Tom Stoppard. The play may come off as a random sequence of events that the two main characters endure, but when aspects of the play are closely examined, there is a method to Stoppard’s writing. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are faced with choices and countless question throughout the play. The questions the main characters ask each other may seem important at the certain time they are asked, but they ask so many questions without any answers that their questions become obsolete. Stoppard makes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern face the question do they want to actors in the play of life, which most readers don’t see because of all the other questions asked in the play.

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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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One of the moments in Hamlet that demonstrates these opposing perspectives is when Hamlet calls out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for trying to “play him,” though he makes his point through a metaphor about a pipe. Hamlet is aware that his old friends are being told what to do by the King and Queen and he eventually accuses them of working for the throne. To the onlookers, they see Hamlet comparing himself to an instrument in an outburst that others would perceive

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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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In keeping with the style of the Theatre of the Absurd and the inactive personalities of the two minor characters in both Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, I decided what ultimately leads up to the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Firstly, I decided that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern should not be separated leading up to their deaths, as they are both reliant on each other and are never apart in both plays. I decided that Rosencrantz would be passive and accept his death since he is the more submissive of the two who never decides anything for himself, as in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead he declares himself that he “can't think of anything original [and is] only good in support” (Stoppard, Act III) after Guildenstern tells him to stop saying essentially the same things as him.

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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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