Mortality
Prior to reading Tom Stoppard’s play, the audience knows the outcome of the two main characters...they die. Whether this knowledge comes from the title itself, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, or their reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the readers are given the ending events of this play. This allows for Stoppard to be creative and give the rest of the play deeper meaning because the audience isn’t focused on the ending events but on the bigger idea of existentialism he is trying to convey. Stoppard’s focus throughout the play is based on existentialism and meaning behind life, however the idea of life can just as easily be related to death. The idea of death is a reoccurring theme throughout this play portraying how the unknowingness of death is unsettling. In the beginning of the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are flipping coins, the coin always lands on heads, at first this appears to only relate to the idea of chance however it can also be related to death. It has been suggested that the coin
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He believes that a death on stage is more convincing than a real death and that death is a easy and logical way to end a pay as well as a life. He believes his whole life is a play that he is acting through and that his life will end in death, as do many actors in a play. During the play within a play he refers to it as a “slaughterhouse,” in which Guildenstern responds that the actors know nothing about death. This is where the Player defends his argument with his opinion being that “their talent is dying” and that death in stage is the only death that people can understand. Stoppard intentionally used this language to create questions within the readers about whether they can understand death, both on and off stage. He uses this as another place where little is know about death and it is meant to create fear in
... to those viewing the performance. The audience must focus their attention of the happenings and the words being portrayed on stage or screen or they will easily miss the double meaning Stoppard intended in each scene of the play. The human motivation is inseparably connected with the theme of life and death that runs through the play, for it is as the two are about to die that they observe that maybe they could have made a different decision, one that would let them remain alive and free they only missed their opportunity to make that choice. Stoppard wanted his play to express more meaning and different messages to his audience but he desired for them to search the play and pay close attention to the different meanings present so they could gain the most possible from the play and those who did not understand would walk away not understanding how much they missed.
Of the four young men who occupy a place in the life of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appear, at least initially, to be his closest friends. They are schoolmates at Wittenburg, and Hamlet greets them both amicably, remarking, " My excellent good friends! How dost thou,....." Queen Gertrude affirms the status of their relationship when she says, "And sure I am two men there is not living to whom he more adheres." Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are unaware, however, of the real story behind the death of Hamlet’s Father. They do not have the benefit of seeing his ghost, as Hamlet has. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are very loyal to the new King. Unlike Hamlet, they initially have no reason not to trust Claudius. But they become unwitting and unknowing pawns for both factions. Their relationship with Hamlet begins to sour. Hamlet realizes what the King is up to, and he becomes distrustful of the two. "’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?...
This encounter is essential to the plot, in that it provides for Hamlet's return from England and sets the stage for Hamlet's discovery of Ophelia's death. It brings Hamlet from the state in which he was able to easily arrange for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to one in which he can feel deep sorrow at the loss of Ophelia. It further grants him a better perspective on the nature of death and on his own fate. Its sharp focus on death further serves to prepare the audience for the conclusion of the play. Up to this point, Hamlet has been an active agent in trying to fulfill his destiny as prescribed by his father's ghost. His actions were disorganized and his goal continually foiled. For example, his attempt to control the situation renders him incapable of killing Claudius when he is at prayer, since Hamlet wishes to manipulate the circumstances of Claudius' death so that he is "about some act that has no relish in't" (III, iv, 91-2). The lesson of the graveyard is that death is inevitable, not contrived. Having learned this lesson, Hamlet is a more passive agent of his own fate and the plot resolves itself. The ...
Stoppard gives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern an existence outside ‘Hamlet’, although it is one of little significance and they idle away their time only having a purpose to their lives when the play rejoins the ‘Hamlet’ plot, after they have been called by the King’s messenger: “There was a messenger...that’s right. We were sent for.” Their lives end tragically due to this connection with ‘Hamlet’, predetermined by the title, but the role provided them with a purpose to their otherwise futile lives, making them bearable. Their deaths evoke sadness and sympathy leaving the reader grieving for them.
all the events which form the play's framework are reduced to a symbolic representation, to an internal unrest which no action will resolve, and no decision will quell. The deepest theme, masked by that of vengeance, is none other than human nature itself, confronted by the metaphysical and moral problems it is moulded by: love, time, death, perhaps even the principle of identity and quality, not to say 'being and nothingness'. The shock Hamlet receives on the death of his father, and on the remarriage of his mother, triggers disquieting interrogations about the peace of the soul, and the revelation of the ghost triggers vicious responses to these. The world changes its colour, life its significance, love is stripped of its spirituality, woman of her prestige, the state of its stability, the earth and the air of their appeal. It is a sudden eruption of wickedness, a reduction of the world to the absurd, of peace to bitterness, of reason to madness. A contagious disease which spreads from man to the kingdom, from the kingdom to the celestial vault':
We’re all going to die right? Then why is it that we fear death so much? In William Shakespeare’s well-known tragic play, Hamlet, the reader views Hamlet’s attitude towards death evolve. Shakespeare proves that Hamlet’s attitude towards death develops throughout the play; he starts off desiring death, then is fearful of death, and finally is confident about death.
“So shall you hear of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause”, (Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2, Lines 381-384). Horatio, best friend of Prince Hamlet, says this in the final lines of the play. He says this after Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, Hamlet, Claudius, King of Denmark, and Laertes, son of Polonius all die in the battle between Hamlet and Laertes. Hamlet, King of Denmark, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, former friends of Hamlet, Polonius, councillor to the King, and Ophelia, daughter of Polonius are also dead. Death is a very important theme in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
In the play Our Town, the people of Grover’s Corners mask their worries and thoughts about death in their quest for happiness. In the first act, a few deaths occur, and the attitude of the people towards these deaths is a negligent one of briefly acknowledging death and moving on. Also, the children in act two who are faced with adulthood are reluctant to accept the burden, through their hesitance to grow up and approach death. In the third act, when we finally get a clear picture of death, the reader sees that the people who are dead are regretful that their mundane lives were incomplete, not realizing the importance of life until they are dead. This method of living proves unfulfilling, as the dead arduously mourn their trivial lives yearning to have made a difference.
your flashes of merriment. that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen. Here, Hamlet really gets a feel for death.
Throughout the play Hamlet, there are many symbols, characters, themes and motifs which have very significant roles. Within the context of characters, those with the greatest impact are more often the major characters than the less significant. However, in the case of one pair of characters, it is rather the opposite. The use of the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet is for more than just comic relief. They are a representation of the betrayal and dishonesty that runs deep within the play.
The play, because of the absurdities contained in it, provide for the comic element and the protagonists engage in senseless pursuits without giving any rational thought to why they have been assigned to the task or what may be the outcome. To these absurd games, where they pose questions and provide answers to it themselves, sometimes as more questions, Stoppard brings a sense of inevitable. This inevitable is the death for which the men are destined.
After a death, we find ways to overcome grief in this painful world. Some people binge eat their way out while others find the easy way out, which is suicide. In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays mortality in the image of death and suicide. Shakespeare develops Hamlet as a man who is sensitive and uncontrolled by his actions. Hamlet faces challenges that mess with his subconscious, making him feel vulnerable to making decisions that will affect his life.
...ted. Hamlet states reflecting on the murders of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, “Their defeat/Does by their own insinuation grow”(5.2.65-66). This mentality Hamlet has about these murders reveals Hamlet coming to terms with death and the implications of it.
Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is transformed by Stoppard, who uses Ros to question the themes of death and certainty. He compares and contrasts the values Elizabethan’s had of death, resulting in new meaning and a value shift. In Hamlet’s soliloquy, the reflective language displays his genuine tone, displaying how he was questioning the afterlife and is concerned about death.
This shows that Guildenstern thinks that reality is only real when there are other people there to see it. Without a witness there is no meaning. This shows the idea that reality has no meaning and can’t exist without anyone to witness and give meaning to it. Stoppard develops the idea that life is meaningless towards the end of the play when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern encounter the Player while on the ship to England.