Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Cherokee County Schools

Hamlet mistakes him for the King. Polonius is portrayed in both plays as old, garrulous, and occasionally
foolish.
Soldier
In both plays a soldier talks with Hamlet and identifies the Norwegian military commander, Fortinbras, as he
marches his troops across Denmark toward Poland. Hamlet admires Fortinbras for his bravery and Fortinbras
succeeds to the throne in Denmark after both Claudius and Hamlet die.
Tragedians
The tragedians who perform The Murder of Gonzago in Hamlet are more child-like and playful in Stoppard's
comedy, where they play musical instruments as well as miming their roles in The Murder of Gonzago.
Essays and Criticism
Stoppard's Themes of Uncertainty and Confusion
The twentieth century could easily be summed up as an Age of Uncertainty. When it began, nearly one
hundred years ago, religious certitude was already eroding, and the process has continued steadily as we
approach the twenty-first century, leaving many more human beings unsure about the existence of an
all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving divine being who guarantees the order and rationality of the
universe. Two unprecedented world wars and the unleashing of atomic weapons have even made us uncertain
about the continued existence of the planet. And the highly influential Freud has subtly contributed to our
uncertainty with his essential message that much of what motivates us remains below the surface of our
normal awareness. Perhaps most paradoxically, science, the paragon of certainty, has dominated the twentieth
century, but as its discoveries advance our knowledge on both telescopic and microscopic scales science also
reveals how much more we don't know and thus adds to our collective sense of uncertainty. From large issues
to small, from public policy to personal lives, from those who are highly educated to those who are not, a
feeling of uncertainty has come to typify our age.
This sensitivity to uncertainty may very well account in part for the enormous and continued appeal of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead because Stoppard's play focuses quite comically and movingly on
this very issue. It is ultimately a play about ordinary people overwhelmed by confusion and uncertainty. In
fact, in an interview with Giles Gordon in 1968, Stoppard explains that the genesis of the play came from his
interest in the way Rosencrantz and Guildenstern "end up dead without really, as far as any textual evidence
goes, knowing why. Hamlet's assumption that they were privy to Claudius's plot is entirely gratuitous. As far
as their involvement in Shakespeare's text is concerned they are told very little about what is going on and
much of what they are told isn't true. So I see them much more clearly as a couple of bewildered innocents
rather than a couple of henchmen, which is the usual way they are depicted in productions of Hamlet."
This tale of "bewildered innocents" begins on the day they have been summoned by a king's messenger to
appear at the Danish court. The messenger gave them no explanations or directions, simply orders, and their
first encounter with King Claudius leaves them not much more enlightened. Speakers of colloquial prose in
Stoppard's story, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are bombarded with Claudius's Elizabethan rhetoric and
Stoppard's humor in this opening confrontation with the Hamlet world includes the ordinary person's
admission that much of this Shakespearean language can seem incomprehensible. That it seems so to
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is obvious. As soon as the Hamlet characters have left, Rosencrantz wails, "I
want to go home" and Guildenstern attempts to calm him by saying, "Don't let them confuse you," even
though he is as confused and uncertain as his friend. After stuttering his reassurances to Rosencrantz,
Guildenstern asks, "Has it ever happened to you that all of a sudden and for no reason at all you haven't the
faintest idea how to spell the word— 'wife'—or 'house'—because when you write it down you just can't
Other Characters 12