Hamlet Challenges With His Predetermined Role example essay topic

In Shakespeare's timeless tragedy Hamlet, the central characters innocent mind is corrupted by the evils of those around him. The tragedy of his death reflects the context's focus on the path and dilemmas of a high bearing Elizabethan man who has a set purpose and predetermined fate. In comparison Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead reflects and arouses sympathy for the roles of ordinary people shown through the inversion of character focus and beliefs, as well as reflecting contemporary existential beliefs and changed ideologies such as a lack of spiritual awareness. Texts are transformed to reflect the changing beliefs and ideologies of a particular context in comparison to past beliefs.

Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead confronts and challenges values held in social, cultural and historical context of Shakespeare's Hamlet, while paying homage to and perpetuating ideas which retain significance and value to a modern responders. It is through the comparison of these texts that one realizes that the context in which it was written shapes meaning in the text, as well as providing a perspective for future generations to reflect on changing values, and their integral role in the human condition. While Shakespeare's canonical text highlights the path of a high bearing Prince, who's harmatia of procrastination, evident through his own self criticism of 'what an ass am I' leads to his downfall, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead reflects and arouses sympathy for two confused protagonist and existential anti-heroes, who's role as accessories to the King in Hamlet initially positions them as malevolent tools devoid of personal motive and disposition, apparent through Hamlets reference to them as 'sponges' to the King's bidding. The inversion of protagonist roles reflects the changed focus of 20th century ideology to common people, as an outcome of gradual mistrusting and questioning of authority, with Hamlets soliloquies muted and dumb shows throughout R&GAD positioning him as insane, while reflecting and challenging the values of a modern context.

Hamlet, the enigmatic protagonist afflicted with the responsibility of avenging his father's death feigns an 'antic disposition' in his rationalizing of completing his role. Affected by the age of enlightenment, Hamlet challenges receding medieval conventions by philosophizing and procrastinating about his dilemma, his personal anguish manifested in lines such as 'to be or not to be, that is the question'. His mental anguish at his predicament is reflected through emotional and physical imagery of imprisonment. "Denmark is a prison", "there are many confines, wards and dungeons" and "could be bound by a nutshell if this mind was so free" emphasizes his mental entrapment towards his 'role'. Hamlet eventually finds serenity in the final realization that he must accept his fate 'there is a divinity that shapes their ends'. In the Elizabethan world, great importance was placed on the chain of being, from which people determined their roles and responsibilities of life.

The murder of a righteous King, emphasized through allusions to Greek Deities such as "Hyperion's curl, the front of Jove himself", throws the natural order into disarray, manifesting itself in decaying imagery of Denmark. Disease imagery such as 'vicious mole', and 'mildewed ear', as well as "the sick soul of Denmark" reflects social and moral corruption of the state. While Hamlet challenges with his predetermined role, R&G struggle to make sense of their world, who's only constant is the periodic return to the confines of the Hamlet script. The recurring motif of disorder and uncertainty, apparent through the timeless, artificial nature of their surroundings with 'no visible character' positions them as pawns who have been 'picked out simply to be abandoned' reflective of modern society's lack of spiritual awareness, direction and existential beliefs.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern's lack of identity and focus lead them to philosophically question a world in which they are trapped and are constantly lied to, in order to find a frame from which to perceive it. 'To be told so little - to be denied an explanation's implistically outlines their dilemma that 'your nobody special', reflecting a dilemma 20th century people face as a result of nihilistic ideologies. Their attempts to justify their existence are manifested in the 'law of probability' and 'law of diminishing returns' all of which inevitably fail. While Hamlet imagined himself being 'doom'd for a certain time to walk the night and for the day confined to fast', reflecting the Elizabethan ideology of an afterlife reflecting one's actions on Earth, death in Stoppard's play is seen simply as an absence of presence, with 'the only beginning being birth, and the only end being death's implistically conveying contemporary man's dilemma 'death is death isn't it?'. Despite their different roles, the characters of Hamlet and R&G can be seen as ironically paralleled in the way they both challenged the accepted ideologies of their context, only to inevitably succumb to a fateful death, as continually foreshadowed in R&G through references to 'darkness coming' and the 'sun setting'. Stoppard alluded to other popular plays influenced by the absurdist movement of the 1960's, such as "Waiting for Godot" and Eliot's "Love song of J Alfred Pru frock", who's character's share a similar nihilistic attitude and fateful acceptance.

Stoppard provided a satirical insight into the meaning of life and death, in a context where satirical humour allowed an escape from the pressures of a rapidly changing political and social context. Dialog such as 'half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all' and 'the great homicidal classics's eaves to satirist elements of Shakespeare's canonical text, Stoppard manages to reaffirm and pay homage to its underlying meaning and role through his modern retextualisation in the way his characters reflect and challenge the dilemmas and values of their age. An inter textual comparison of these texts truly reveals the extent to which their particular context shapes meaning and understanding of historical, social and cultural values present within the text. It is the transformation of a canonical text like Shakespeare's Hamlet that allows contemporary responders to achieve a heightened perspective of the way in which values have changed, emphasizing the complexity and dynamic nature of the human condition.