They play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by Tom Stoppard is a humorous, existentialist play where two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet are the leads, focusing mainly on their musings and actions while Hamlet occurs as background. The story is about the two main characters’ misadventures, which in turn led to their death. The dialogue in the play is as confusing and witty as the two leads are confused. But the two leads are so confused about where they are going in their journey or how they even started that most of the time, their frustration leads to some philosophical musings about the incomprehensibility of the world.An example of the witty dialogue and a presentation of one of their philosophies is the following conversation about death while they were on their way to England.
This is in response to when The Player says that death is common and that light vanishes with life: Rosencrantz: Do you think Death could possibly be a boat? Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is "not.
" Death isn't. Take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not be on a boat. Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no... What you've been is not on boats. (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Act III) Existentialism is ever-so present in the play as it progresses as the two leads go on wandering and wondering about their journey, while scenes in Hamlet coincides with the play itself. On the one hand, it seems that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have no idea how to go on with their journey and are confused on most part of the play.
On the other hand, they still make decisions, which consequently lead to their own death.It makes the audience wonder whether Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die because of their own actions or because it was fated to happen. This question of whether what happened to them is their choice or not is magnified in the last act of the play, as they both are nearing their deaths. However, the scene where Guildenstern stabs and “kills” The Player is the scene where the two leads and the audience are illuminated about death and about the discrepancies between theatrical performance and real life.
The Player’s line “Audiences know what to expect, and that is all they are prepared to believe in,” explains that people generally believe in death performed theatrically because it’s something they can expect, emphasizing it when he convinces Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he “died” when Guildenstern stabbed him. Whereas death in real life is difficult to accept and believe because we generally don’t anticipate and expect how our death would be like.The line also explains how we generally see the world around us, and how our expectations become the truth to us. We build our beliefs through what we expect would happen in our lives, rejecting anything which goes beyond our expectations.
This is true in the part where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are still in disbelief about heir impending deaths, not expecting it to happen when they get to England, having believed that they were only to escort Hamlet to his execution.After the “death” scene in the last act of the play and the enlightenment it brought about the issues that were presented, the play ends with the ambassador’s proclamation that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, and marks the ultimate point of the play about the terrible truths about life; that it is random and not everything we expect of life happens in favor of us.
