Tom Stoppard Comparison Essay

When studying the transformations it is significant to consider the religious, historical, and social contexts of the specific times that the two writers, Tom Stoppard and William Shakespeare, lived. Both of the men, as being contemporary writers, were evidence of the values of their society. By comparing and contrasting the aspects displayed to the specific reader in the texts, it happens to raise several questions that can change their perspective on what is meant by transformation (Dobson 56).

Shakespeare’s Hamlet happened to be written in the period of Elizabethan values. One of the most significant values the absolute dedication to divinity. This dedication formed religious beliefs and the notions of destiny and fate and the search for the meaning contrast widely to Stoppard’s outlooks which were determined by Existentialist philosophy.

Stoppard’s existentialist philosophy emphasized on personal freedom and the option of direction of life with possibilities that are less limited. These two contrasting values of society significantly control the reader’s perception when studying the way they were ‘transformed.’ An instance of the religious diversifications is the beliefs and ideals on death. In the play ‘Hamlet’ death is displayed as dramatic and violent with examples involving sword fights and poisoning. Due to his beliefs, Stoppard brings the probability that death isn’t an event that causes judgment by some divine values of the Elizabethan Christianity. This is displayed by Guildenstern when he defines death as “simply failing to re-appear”. The comparison here depicts death’s uncertainty, and by this transformation the reader comes to the opinion that death is like secrecy to all of us, no matter what era or beliefs one mi...

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...ation ‘product’. When the play ‘Hamlet’ is ending we get the sense that deep changes have happened. While a number are dead, this figure of loyalty Horatio proposes that a form of purging has occurred where ‘purposes mistook/Fall’n on th’inventors’ heads’ (Shakespeare 369). In ‘Hamlet’s’ world, it appears, things may be looking to be better, at least for the ones still standing.

In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s world, however, things couldn’t get much worse with the main figures, knowing that the end of them is programmed in the title of the play. As adaptation, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead’ happens to be locked in the end set in the initial play. This causes a deep pessimism sense in the play that cries over the absence of change and action, based on the knowledge of the audience that the only change possible will happen to cause the protagonists death.