The play, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ by Tom Stoppard, is a spin-off of the most famous and arguably the greatest piece of English literature, ‘Hamlet’ by Shakespeare. But the play by Tom Stoppard was quite different from Hamlet, as the play by Shakespeare was a tragedy with very few comic scenes and moments, whereas the play that Tom Stoppard wrote was mostly comical and funny, and some parts of it were serious and heart-rending.
Existential Confusion and the Search for Identity
The reader has a hard time reading and understanding the tone and theme of the play. The play deals with the existential crisis of the two men and their confusion because of their inability to comprehend this unfathomable universe. The confusion and difficulty start when one of the two characters starts to flip the coin, and every time he flips it, it always comes up heads. One hundred times he flips it, and 100 times it is heads. There are many different scenarios where it is hard to discern what exactly the writer wants to convey, for instance, the verbal tennis game played by the two characters. The game was that both of them were to ask questions of each other, but the catch was that whoever answered lost the game. The play completely deviated from the expectations of the reader because the reader, from the first few scenes, thought it was going to be a play similar to ‘Hamlet,’ but not only was it the contrary, the theme and tone of the play were completely different. The whole play was about resolving the identity crisis and the purpose of one’s life in this vast universe.
Stoppard and the Theatre of the Absurd
Many readers have regarded Tom Stoppard’s play as the perfect example of the ‘Theatre of the Absurd,’ mainly because the themes of the Theatre of the Absurd and Tom Stoppard’s play were similar. For example, the Theatre of the Absurd mostly deals with existentialism and identity crises. The play and the Theatre of the Absurd both involve an inability to communicate with people or the incapability of making profound statements and sticking to clichés. The fundamental features of the Theatre of the Absurd are the struggle for truth, people’s futile effort to control their lives, resorting to small talk, the impending demolition of the world, and incongruity (van Waarden).
Death in Hamlet and Stoppard’s Play
Both plays have a common theme, which is death. In Hamlet, both main characters in Tom Stoppard’s play die, and Tom exaggerates the theme and concept of death in his play because the audience knew that the characters would eventually die, and they also knew the way they would die. There is a quotation from Hamlet, “To die, to sleep. No more; and by a sleep to say we end” (Sugg). Shakespeare wrote these lines to elucidate to his audience what the concept of death is like. What is it like to face death or to die? Or is it possible that we can survive and escape death, or is it that we will escape after death? Shakespeare says in Hamlet that it is quite possible that death is similar to being asleep. He says, through these lines, that it will be more relaxing than experiencing the drudgery of a job or encountering tribulations in every corner of the world. It will be easier to face death and go through that process than to get up every morning and face the hardships of life. Shakespeare is trying to find an answer to whether or not there is any escape after death: escape from the sufferings, trials, and tribulations of life. In the very next lines of this quotation, he writes that we are all moving towards impending destruction. There is little chance of us surviving.
Mortality and the Illusion of Escape
Tom Stoppard, in his play, focuses on the theme of death. One of his quotations is, “Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death?” (Pfaff). Tom Stoppard, through his characters, says that death is something people are aware of, but they tend to forget it, or they like to live in a delusional state. He explains, through the example of the coin scene, that the world will always win. The absurdity of the coin always falling to give heads is not absurdity but the confirmation that death will eventually win. There is no escaping death. Through one of his characters, Tom describes that there is no real difference between a real death and a fake one. The moment a child is born, he or she knows nothing about the world, but they already know that death exists and that every single soul on this earth will eventually succumb to it. As a person grows up, he or she seems to forget about death, but the concept of death and mortality is always lingering and looming at the back of the mind.
Works Cited
Pfaff, Agnes. A Structural Clash of Perspectives. Irreconcilable Contradictions in Tom Stoppard’s Drama” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” 2016.
Sugg, Richard. Shakespeare’s Anatomies of Death. Oxford University Press, 2016.
van Waarden, Betto. Theatre of the Absurd. 2014.
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