Analysis Of Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (RAGAD) deals with life and death, fate and free will, illusion and reality – all of these factors make it a comedy of misunderstanding. It explores these factors in a existential way, while at the same time pointing out the absurdity of the human existence, in turn making it 'funny'.

RAGAD is about the misadventures of two characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were two of the minor characters from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, who are supposedly childhood friends of the prince. RAGAD is supposed to be the inverse of Hamlet; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appear as the lead characters in this play, instead of being the supporting players; also Hamlet himself in RAGAD is only a small part in the whole play, this is turn makes it hugely ironic to the people who have read or watched Hamlet already.
The duo appears on stage here when they are supposed to be off-stage in Shakespeare's play, with the exception of a few scenes in which the dramatic events of both plays come together in this strange sort of way; when reading RAGAD, it almost feels that the events outside of what is happening in Hamlet are in an alternate universe, to some readers creating the absurdity.
In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are used by the King in an attempt to discover what Hamlet's motives are and to plot against him. Hamlet happens to mock and outwit them and therefore just misses his own death, resulting in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern being executed in the end. So looking from the character prespective in RAGAD, the action that happens in Hamlet is seen as largely comical.
The two characters can be confused, but as individuals, have very unique identities. Rosencrantz frequently confuses his own name...

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...stand, us as an audience.
Rosencrantz and Guildernsten always take their time to decide on not to do anything at all nearly almost all of the time and then return to that state of just being and going with what is given to them. You can tell that they desperately want to change the fate of their situation and put it in their control, and we as an audience can recognise that, this offers a sense of dramatic irony because we know they could easily change their own fate and get what they want as characters, they would just have to do this by not going with absurd motions of the play.
We the audience know, that the real problem is that they are completely controlled by outside forces and they can't do anything about it. They are being decieved; they are not really being left to their own control as they are being swept along by the plot that has been written for them.

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