Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

• By Tom Stoppard

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Theater of the Absurd

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an
  example of Theater of the Absurd (or Absurdist
  Theater).
• Was a response to World War II
• Written primarily by European playwrights in the
  1950s
• In a world that has become absurd the theatre of
  the absurd is the most accurate reproduction of
  reality

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Characteristics of Theatre of the Absurd

• Characters ask the questions
• Why are we here?
• What happens after death?
• Do we have control over our destiny?
• Characters tend to be clown-like and helpless,
  with no sense of purpose

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More Characteristics

• The setting of the play is often featureless
• Life is often portrayed as void of significance
  and the world is meaningless
• Celebrates the breakdown of language and
  communication
• Empty phrases prevent communication and destroy
  the sense of personal identity.

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More Characteristics

• Often the characters acknowledge the play and
  question the line between performance and reality
• Deliberately baffles the audience
• Usually lacks dramatic conflict and sequential
  plot
• Shows the human condition as one of confusion and
  chaos
• Explores the barrenness of life
• Other Theater of the Absurd playwrights are
  Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter, and Samuel
  Beckett.

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Martin Esslin (from Absurd Drama)

• A Well-Made Play
• Characters are well observed convincingly
  motivated
• Dialogue is witty logically built up

• An Absurdist Play
• Characters are hardly recognizable human beings,
  their actions are completely unmotivated.
• Dialogue seems to have degenerated into
  meaningless babble

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• Beginning-middle-ending clearly recognizable
• It is primarily concerned to tell a story or
  illuminate an intellectual problemIt can thus be
  seen as a narrative or discoursive form of
  communication
• Result Final Message
• DYNAMIC

• It starts at an arbitrary point seems to end as
  arbitrarily
• It is intended to convey a poetic image os a
  complex pattern of poetic images it is above all
  a poetic form
• It conveys a central atmosphere
• STATIC

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• The action goes from point A to point B we
  constantly ask Whats going to happen next?
• Conditioned by clear , comforting beliefs, a
  stable scale of values, an ethical system in full
  working conditions

• Action gradual unfolding of a complex pattern
  .We ask What is it that we are seeing?
• Absurdist playwrights no longer believe in the
  possibility of of a neat resolution they express
  a sense of wonder , incomprehension, despair at
  the lack of cohesion and meaning they find in
  the world

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• Politics
• Religion
• Implicit belief in the goodness perfectibility
  of people
• Unthinking acceptance of the moral political
  status quo
• Implicit idea that the world does make sense,
  reality is secure , all outlines clear, all ends
  apparent

• There is no faith in the existence of a rational
  and well ordered universe
• Sense of shock at the absense , the loss of any
  such clear well defined system of beliefs
  values

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Topics for Discussion

• Explore the theme of death in both plays.
• The Murder of Gonzago is the play within the play
  in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. What
  are the similarities and differences between the
  two plays? Why cant Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
  grasp the true significance of the play?
• Compare and contrast the characters of Hamlet and
  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
• How does Hamlets identity struggle (in Hamlet)
  compare to the identity struggle of Rosencrantz
  and Guildenstern (in RG)?
• Does Stoppards play pay homage to Hamlet, or
  does it ridicule it?
• Identify the characteristics of Theater of the
  Absurd in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.