Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead summary/analysis

Author – Tom Stoppard

Setting – There are three main locations…

1.      A no man’s land – this is significant because this idea of uncertainty is not only portrayed by the location but by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as well, they have no idea why they are there and what they are supposed to do.

2.      Court of Denmark – this is significant because this is the part of the play where they are sucked into the world of Hamlet

3.      Boat – this is significant because being on the boat represents death, where you are all alone in a large body of water

Characters

1.      Rosencrantz – He can be seen as the goofy sidekick who does whatever he is told and really doesn’t think for himself.  Rosencrantz (Ros) is a nicer personality than Guil, and he is more likeable by the people they meet on their journey.  Once in a while Ros does say something out of character that’s wise or profound.

2.      Guildenstern – Guil is the leader in the duo and he is a realist.  Guil may not be much smarter than Ros, but is trying to prove that he’s smart by talking about well-known scientific theories.  Guil scares readers because he is realistic and reveals a scary truth that everyone will end up dying and that nobody serves a true purpose in the world.  Guil is also not seen as the best friend, because he has no loyalty and this is seen when he thought it was okay to send Hamlet to his death.

3.      The Player – He is the leader of the tragedians, and when readers first meet him he doesn’t give off the best first impression, because he talks about rape and prostitution.  He feels that life is like being an actor in a play where someone else has already determined your fate, so there’s no point trying to change it.  Overall the player is obsessed with death and that’s what the majority of his lines talk about

Plot Summary

1.      The play starts out with Ros and Guil flipping coins and it keeps landing on heads and Ros keeps pocketing the money

2.      Guil then starts trying to understand this phenomenon and brings in the law of probability, which he explains incorrectly

3.      Then Ros and Guil remember that a messenger came and sent for them, but they don’t remember why

4.      Then the tragedians come along, and offer to act out anything or do any sexual activities for money

5.      Guil challenges the player to a coin toss, and using wits and logic Guil wins, then the player walks away upset

6.      All of a sudden Ros and Guil are put into a scene from Hamlet where Claudius and Gertrude ask Ros and Guil to spy on Hamlet and find out what’s bothering him

7.      The Ros and Guil decide to play questions as a way to practice talking to Hamlet, but it just leads to misunderstandings, and is seen as humorous

8.      Then Hamlet walks in, interrupting the game of questions and acts normal and warm towards his childhood friends

9.      Hamlet tells his friends that he’s not crazy, but Ros and Guil still don’t think they got all the information they were supposed to

10.  Then the players walk in and Hamlet asks them to perform The Murder of Gonzago

11.  The players and Ros and Guil start to talk and the player tells them to stop constantly questioning the situation/life and to calm down

12.  Then the player talks about what the play is about (mimics the situation that Hamlet is in)

13.  Then the three of them start talking about Hamlet and the player tells Ros and Guil that Hamlet is in love with Ophelia

14.  Then Ros and Guil watch the dress rehearsal and here all the events that will happen in the future are acted out, including the fact that Ros and Guil will be hanged

15.  Then Guil gets upset saying that a play cannot reflect death (Stoppard’s voice), but the player disagrees

16.  The next day Hamlet stabs Polonius and Ros and Guil are sent to go talk to Hamlet and try to figure out where he put Polonius’s body

17.  Then readers find out that Ros and Guil have to take Hamlet to England for some unknown reason

18.  The last act opens with Ros and Guil on a boat, and they are arguing about what to do when they get to England

19.  As a result they act out what they will say to the king when they get to England, during this acting out they open the letter they have to give to the king

20.  The letter says that Hamlet will be killed, and Hamlet overhears this so when Ros and Guil are asleep Hamlet exchanges the letter for one that he wrote saying Ros and Guil should get killed instead

21.  Ros and Guil talk about what they should do, and when they reopen the letter they read that it has been changed and it’s sending them to death rather than Hamlet

22.  The next morning pirates invade the boat and they take Hamlet with them

23.  Then Guil stabs the player, and everyone thinks he’s dead, but then he gets up and reveals the dagger used to stab the player was a fake prop

24.  The next scene we see Ros and Guil ready to be hanged, they question what actions have led them to this situation and what their purpose was in the world

25.  The last scene is out of Hamlet where we see everyone in the Court dead and Horatio is speaking

Symbols

1.      The boat represents a world of uncertainty, because Ros and Guil have no control over the boat, they just have to see where the boat takes them

2.      The coins represent the randomness of the world, because the coins defy the rules of probability.  They also represent fate versus chance

3.      The play represents the idea that life is like a play and we have no choice in our fate, we’ll end up wherever we’re supposed to because it’s all predetermined

Themes

1.      Communication because throughout the play Ros and Guil would be having a conversation but each of them were in their own world and that led to a lot of miscommunication and added humor to the play

2.      Isolation because Ros and Guil lived in a world of their own, and they would just pop in and out of scenes from Hamlet, readers would never see  them travel to those places they would just appear

3.      Death because there is the idea that we are all going to die, and there’s also the idea that art can’t accurately describe death, we can only know what it truly is by experiencing it for ourselves

Important Quotes

1.      ROS: What are you playing at?
GUIL: Words, words. They're all we have to go on

Ø  This quote is important because it shows how desperate these two characters are to find out what their purpose is, and they only have the idea of communication.  This quote emphasizes the theme of communication and misunderstanding.

2.      ROS (he means): Is he dead?
PLAYER: Who knows?
GUIL (rattled): He's not coming back?
PLAYER: Hardly.
ROS: He's dead then. He's dead as far as we're concerned
PLAYER: Or we are as far as he is.

Ø  This shows the uncertainty when it comes to death, and nobody can know what it truly is until they have experienced it.  This quote emphasizes the theme of death, and it shows the many definitions of death as well.