Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Main article: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead See also: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (film)

As the protagonists of Tom Stoppard's play and film, they are confused by the events of Hamlet and seem unaware of their role in the larger drama. The play is primarily a comedy, but they often stumble upon deep philosophical truths through their nonsensical ramblings. In the movie, Rosencrantz invents the hamburger, and discovers gravity and volume displacement, among other things. The characters depart from their epiphanies as quickly as they come to them.

At times one appears to be more enlightened than the other; however this light is traded off throughout the course of the drama. Stoppard also littered his play with jokes referring to the common thespian tendency to swap Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the midst of the play because the characters are basically identical. He does this by making Rosencrantz and Guildenstern unsure of who is who, as well as having the other players (Claudius, Hamlet, Gertrude) refer to them frequently by the wrong names. Because of the play's similarity to Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz is sometimes compared with Estragon (one of the tramps who was waiting for Godot), and who shares his dim perception of reality, while Guildenstern parallels Vladimir, who shares his analytical perception.