Setting:
Ambiguous countryside; Elsinore, capitol of Denmark
Characters:
Ros - embodiment of human discovery, Dionysian figure
Guil - embodiment of human intellect, Apollonian figure
Player - voice of reason/wisdom, Horatio-like, metaphysical character
Tragedians - support Player's role
Hamlet - troubled Prince of Denmark, friend of Ros and Guil
Claudius - King of Denmark, uncle/ father of Hamlet
Gertrude - Queen of Denmark, mother of Hamlet
Plot:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two underdeveloped, static characters in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Tom Stoppar decided their was more to their story, so he wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, a play that stars Ros (Rosencrantz) and Guil (Guildenstern) and depicts their journey from the point when they were called to the court in Elsinore to their deaths in England.They encounter a group of tragedians, who follow them throughout the play, hinting at the meaning of the play.
Quotes:
- Guil: Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are condemned.
The characters of the play are trapped in and endless cycle, only existing while the play occurs; while the book is open. Once the characters die and the pages close, the characters are gone until the cycle is repeated. The characters are, in a way, cursed with immortality: living and dying over and over. Stoppard has even made the main characters self aware.
- Player: We grow rusty and you catch us at the very point of decadence - by this time tomorrow we might have forgotten everything we knew.
This is me... Yesterday.
Theme Statement:
Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guilenstern are Dead comments on the role that characters play in stories: whether they come to life of their own accord or are brought to life by the author. He calls to attention the two sides of the arts: "For some of us it is performance, for others, patronage. They are two sides of the same coin, or, let us say, being as there are so many of us, the same side of two coins."
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