Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Cherokee County Schools

The principal manifestation of this age-old debate occurs after the Player informs Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern that the troupe members are not free to "decide" what they perform, for "It is written." "The bad
end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means." Then in about one page he paraphrases what
seems to be The Murder of Gonzago, the play within the play of Hamlet, which is the play within Stoppard's
play. As both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fear, however, and as we viewers realize, the Player is actually
paraphrasing Shakespeare's play, from the murdering of Hamlet's father right through to the final switching of
letters that culminates in the king of England's killing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
This occasion frightens Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, combined as it is with their operating almost totally in
the dark and with their play-opening experience of watching 94 consecutive coins violate the law of
probability by coming up heads. But it engenders more than fear in the audience. We know, of course, that
Stoppard's title marks his limitations: he cannot change the outcome that has been"written'' by Shakespeare.
That much is determined.
Beyond Stoppard's being confined by his predecessor, however, lie a number of similar questions about
artist-creators and their creatures. How did Shakespeare alter his source? Who authored Shakespeare? In what
sense is Stoppard "written"? Can we clearly separate Shakespeare's source from him as maker of Hamlet, or
are artist and artifact inevitably blended and blurred, as in the case of Stoppard's choosing to have his Player
create the play that turns out to be Shakespeare's Hamlet, featuring the Player and Stoppard's title-figures?
Where do the mirrors and the onionskin layers of seeming begin and end? Perhaps finally (if such an adverb
applies here), we in the audience want to know whether we are as doomed, as "written," as Calvin and the
Player assert and as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern feel.
This sense of doom descends at the end of Stoppard's play, which, as always, coincides in some sense with
Shakespeare's. Just as Stoppard anticipates Shakespeare by having the Player invent Hamlet, so he alters
Hamlet by having Rosencrantz and Guildenstern read Claudius's letter condemning Hamlet to death, choose
not to inform Hamlet of this command, and then read and decline to act upon Hamlet's substituted letter
ordering their own deaths. In these ways some elbow-room is given for variations or choices within fixed
limits, but outcomes are nonetheless determined as "written."
In view of such tight metaphysical or theological confinement, how are we to read Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern's final attitude, and what is to be our own attitude? An answer may be attempted in two parts.
First, ambiguity coats the term "final attitude," for, inasmuch as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are artifacts,
they do not end. They are potentially susceptible to as much literary analysis and criticism as is Hamlet.
Indeed, Stoppard is having a good time with the whole critical industry, present company included. For the
play suggests an additional layer of applied significance for every reader or viewer who takes in R&GAD and
tries to make it mean. Thus the play, like Hamlet or anything else created, will go on acquiring significance
indefinitely. So much for finality, then, at least aesthetically.
Second, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and we would seem to be restricted to a certain few conclusions. We
can accept the plain deterministic reading of all creation and creatures. Rosencrantz seems to take this view
and to be glad to know at last where the royal ship, beyond his control, is taking him. He likes certitude and is
tired. Guildenstern's "Now you see me, now you—" [blackout] appears to comment on anyone's quick
mead-hall flight between darknesses. It is hard to know whether he is suggesting a view of his own demise or
is remarking on the wondrous technical expression of snuffing it.
Or perhaps we can join the Player in an acceptance of whatever creative leeway is available to us, and enjoy
such limited freedom within our cages. Augustine's view would be that, although we cannot work it out
rationally without religious faith, the Creator's knowing our outcome and our choosing it are not
contradictory. We simply cannot know the mind of God, and we err gravely if we assume that mind to
Tom Stoppard's Lighted March 16