Play Rosencrantz Guildenstern example essay topic

Too much time on your hands can be self-destructing. It happens everyday, a woman with seemingly little to do with herself is able to sit and ponder her future; she is able to take a step back and examine where she has been and what could possibly lie ahead. Chilling to some who can't even remember what they had for breakfast this morning and more disturbing to those who are not happy with the direction they are headed. But does it really matter in the end whether or not your toast had butter or jam on it or whether the things you have done in your time made you rich?

The play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard examines the universal truth of the end of your days and the notion that what is in between really won't count when it is all over. Guildenstern, the more seemingly wiser of the duo, makes a comment in the first act to Rosencrantz, saying, "The only beginning is birth and the only end is death- if you can't count on that, what can you count on?" (39). With this said, don't you think that our two characters would do all they can to try and change the fate before them, to try to defy the laws of finality and probability, just as it happened in the flipping of the coins? However, it does not seem that these two men are capable of such higher thought. And, as said in class, the script has already been written, so wouldn't any change you feel you were making already be in the script? However, in this play, whether you want to call it a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy, two men have basically seen the fate of all man and know that the end will come.

There is nothing anyone can do about it. Moving along in the play though, they seem more and more na " ive to the fact that they too will come to an end. They have refused to see deeper into the play acted out before them, the story that tells of their ending. What does bring depth to these characters is the fact that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do try to make sense of their existence and go through the play blissfully unaware of where it will all end. Ironic as that may sound, especially since Guildenstern did make a point to say that birth and death are the two things in life you can count on, the two men seem to think that just as the coin ended up on heads for ninety times, they too will defy the odds. But it is not to say that these two men are complete idiots who never expect to face death.

Just as most of us do in our lives, we live like death is a far cry away when in reality is could be just one step away. We too have not read the full script of our own lives. However, we do know that death will conclude the final chapter. How long this script is, how many chapters, and how well it is played out is unknown to us all.

With that said, are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern so much different from us all, as Stoppard continuously points out throughout the play. I don't know may people who dwell on the fact that they will die some day. It is established that sometime following birth will always death. So why would it be important to try to save someone from death or to remove yourself from your original fate and put that upon others, as Hamlet did to Ros and Guil with the changing of the note in the sealed envelope?

Hamlet must have been aware that no matter what, he will still die. His script is written by the same author as everyone else's and the final chapter is the same. Hamlet seems to have realized that yes, birth and then death will occur, like everyone else before him, but what is in between is what counts. He swapped the letter to put Ros and Guil to doom, therefore extending his life time. The quality thereafter, whether tainted with guilt or not, is what he was hoping to improve. Hamlet may have felt that it wasn't really his time to leave yet.

"Death is just a man failing to reappear. Here one moment, gone the next". Hamlet may have been thinking that his script was written incorrectly and he wasn't ready to not reappear. Be as that may, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern met their death with the help of Hamlet. That is not to say, though, that Hamlet is an antagonist. That would be Stoppard, the man who wrote these character's scripts.

Throughout they play Ros and Guil were constantly thinking of the end and what fate has in store for them. This is what possible can lead to self-destruction in life. Everything will end no need to dwell on that. What happens in between is what can really count. Ros and Guil should have never let their minds, with too much time to think, wonder about fate so much, since it is inevitable, and worry about what happens in between. So at the end of the day, I think it does matter whether or not you used butter or jam.

That may be the last time you eat toast, so make it count... unless you were given a viewing copy of your script and know that you will for sure eat toast tomorrow!