Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern example essay topic

Transformation In Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, the composer's intention is to show part of the story of Hamlet out of the eyes of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It Is different to Shakespeare's Hamlet because of a number of reasons. A writer will sometimes create a character who is put into the story to provide a contrast or comparison with the main character. Such a character may be placed into a similar situation as the main character, but react differently, in order to show how much better or worse he / she is than the main character. This kind of character is called a foil. In the story Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Stoppard uses different foils to Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Stoppard uses Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as foils for each other. They are both in the same situation but react differently. It shows both of their personalities which enhances people's interest in the story. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the main characters in the story. Hamlet is used as a plot device. In Hamlet, Fortinbras is a young Prince of Norway, whose father the King (also named Fortinbras) was killed by Hamlet's father (also named Hamlet).

Fortinbras wishes to attack Denmark to avenge his father's honour, making him a foil for Prince Hamlet. A clear perspective of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's personalities is evident in Stoppard's transformation. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, it hardly shows any of their personalities at all. In Hamlet, the confusion surrounding the names of these 'attendant lords' (Ros and Guil) is basically an oddly out-of-place gag concerning their insignificance. But as Stoppard moves these minor characters to centre stage, their namelessness becomes a critique of identity. Stoppard allows the audience to function as critics during the play rather than afterward.

By transplanting characters from a play we already know, Stoppard enlarges our perspective. We can see beyond the limited view of the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and critique their situation in the context of our own lives. We can see both heads and tails. Stoppard didn't take the serious issues of Hamlet quite so seriously. Stoppard's transformation is more comical and humerus without as many important issues as Hamlet. It generally sticks to a simple but clever storyline.

The impact of society and cultural influence upon a text's composition is deep and may be viewed as reflective of the period in which it was created. Separated by several centuries of social change, turmoil, and general upheaval, the values presented within both these texts are hardly matching. The decline in recognition of the supernatural as an influence upon humans may be viewed as (at least partly) responsible for the change in attitudes displayed between the 'original' and transformed work. Death is the driving force for the events of the text in Hamlet. Hamlet may be read as a revenge tragedy and in this, the consideration of the reader is drawn to the plight of Hamlet.

He doesn't despair for his temporal loss, although that may be part of it. If that was the extent of Hamlet's concerns, Claudius would be killed without such extensive procrastination on Hamlet's part. Hamlet declares in response to killing Claudius or his own suicide- "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all" - He didn't dare to act for fear of damnation. Hamlet believed in consequence in death, while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern didn't in Stoppard's creation centuries later. "Here one minute and gone the next and never coming back- an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced... ".

Stoppard's protagonists (Ros and Guil) can't understand the ridiculous obsession of death held by the Players. It is biological, Stoppard reduces it to a natural process through the creation of a dialogue which discusses death at only this level- "Another curious scientific phenomenon is the fact that the fingernails grow after death, as does the beard". Evidently, there is less importance placed on death in Stoppard's work. Stage directions call for ridicule and mockery. It is over dramatic and is exaggerated and amusing.

For example, when Guil stabs the leading Player with a knife. He is convinced he has killed him. The blade goes "in up to the hilt", and the Player falls, Guil making his final statements with conviction- after this point, he is "tired, drained"- "If we have a destiny, then so had he- and if this is ours, then that was his- and if there are no explanations for us, then let there be none for him". The Player rises from the over dramatic act of the poignancy of death. The melodrama of death is sarcastic only in this work and according to the stage directions, fitting in perfect with the closing scene of Hamlet. The transformation doesn't alter the content here but alters the portrayal of the same.

Stoppard's masterful use of dramatic devices and irony creates a work different in nature to Shakespeare's text. Stoppard's work is seen to convey the values of its time and, through this, demonstrate the changes in values witnessed between Elizabethan times and the 1960's not through bright exhibition and melodrama but through subtle dramatic devices and techniques. Comment on death, for example, is delivered instead through crafted silence, confusion and inaction. "And he disappears from view. Guil does not notice."Our names shouted a certain dawn... a message... a summons... there must have been a moment at the beginning, where we could have said- no. But somehow we missed it".

Ros and Guil are killed ("And Guil disappears") It is evident that centuries later, in Stoppard's time, society didn't place as much importance or concern on death. Reflection of change is predictable, as Stoppard's message is shaped by a social model foreign to the original work, and this difference in values is basically conveyed through transformation.