Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead Quotes

So, Heads or Tails?

(An analysis of the major messages in Tom Stoppard’s film, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) Heads or Tails? The simple flipping of a coin and wondering the probability of whether it will land heads or tails up is parallel to the world and the idea of predestination. Some individuals stand firm in their belief that they have some sort of free will and that the choices that are made everyday are 100 percent due to individual thought and choice. On the flip side, so to speak, how do individuals know that they are not simply actors upon a stage reciting exactly what the playwright wrote for them. In Tom Stoppard’s film, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the two flat characters of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, take on real lives where they battle with the concept of death and predestination. The movie is iconic if the

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, various times individuals such as Hamlet and King Claudius get the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern confused. In that play, they usually appear together and speak relatively the same lines and are basically one person. This concept is mirrored in Stoppard’s film, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern even get themselves mixed up and will often debate who is who. This message of not knowing one’s identity is easily applied to modern society, as people in their cliques will often act like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern when the two men have the conversation about why one always repeats the other. Often, people get so caught up in fitting in that they can no longer form their own ideas, much like how Guildenstern gets annoyed by Rosencrantz and asks why they can never have an actual conversation. The reason that the two never have meaningful conversations is due to one always repeating what the other one has already stated, much like today when individuals believe everything that anyone