"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the absurdist existentialist tragicomedy
"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard. The paper looks at how Stoppard portrays the everyman by portraying the confusion of the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet). The paper also explains how this play is a nexample of good absurdist theater because it allows the audience to draw comparisons with themselves, realizing that the characters they have been so critical of, really represent humanity. The writer believes that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not the heroes of the story and they are not given the opportunity to save the day, and never really manage to change the course of the play in any real way. The writer concludes that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with their sad charm, are pathetic in a way only an absurdist everyman could be and all of the bleak statements on humanity that Stoppard throws at his audience really mean nothing in the end because after all, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

From the Paper:

"The play opens to an obvious dilemma. No matter how many times they flip their coin, or how much they try to interpret the meaning, the coin is always heads up. They believe they have freewill, and look desperately for a legitimate reason for this anomaly. On pg. 2, Guildenstern muses on their situation, "A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability". Three pages later, he is still determined to find an explanation, "It must be indicative of something, besides the redistribution of wealth. List of possible explanations." (And he goes on to examine four possibilities, his will, time having stopped, divine intervention, the principle of probability)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. London: Faber and Faber, 1967.

More papers on "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard:

• Analytical Essay # 66817 : "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"
• Analytical Essay # 66199 : "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead": A Transformation of "Hamlet"
• Analytical Essay # 118132 : "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"

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