Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

Tom Stoppard the author of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a British play-writer born in Czech. Stoppard wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 1964. The exposition of the play begins with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern flipping coins that favors Rosencrantz request for heads 100 to 0. The play then continues with Guildenstern questioning if they have entered a new dimension in which the laws of chance and time are absent. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are then faced with the question of why they are traveling. The rising action continues with the encounter of the player, the leader of a group called the tragedians. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are given a mission to probe Hamlets distraught mind, during the journey Rosencrantz and Guildenstern demonstrate the inability to make their own decisions that inevitably lead to their deaths. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s inability to make their own choices leading them to death demonstrates the theme of death and freewill in the play.

Death is one of the main themes in the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

The title itself foreshadows the characters death. The exposition of the play begins with a questionable coin toss with unrealistic odds of a 100-long streak of heads. At first these odds seem impossible but as the rising action builds towards the climax, the odds become obvious. The odds act as a representation of the fate of death. Death beats human life every time. Shakespeare’s Hamlet has already devised Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s death; therefore, the audience of Stoppard’s play already know the inevitability of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s death. These two characters amplify the fate and inevitability of death. In Act III the player, who is the leader of the tragedians says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “Life is a gamble, at terrible odds – if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it.” This comment summarizes the fate of death. No matter what you do, good or bad, death will

prevail.
Freewill is another theme that is apparent as the play acts out. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are in a constant confusion throughout the play. From the exposition where the two seem utterly helpless as they can’t seem to remember how they began their journey or where they are headed, to their final hours where the two are completely dumbfounded by their approaching death. The confusion leads Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to feel powerless over their choices. As their death becomes closer they seem to react passively to the unplanned forces that push them closer to their final destruction. At one point the characters are in the woods with the Tragedians, and the next they are in Elsinore where they are asked to investigate Hamlet’s distraught mind, in which they accept without truly understanding their mission. In Act III after they realize Hamlet is not on the boat Guildenstern says “We’ve travelled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without possibility or reprieve or hope of explanation. Rosencrantz then reply’s “Be happy – if you’re not even happy what’s so good about surviving? We’ll be all right. I suppose we just go on” This conversation shows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s inability to make their own decisions and their passiveness towards unpredictable situations.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s failure to make their own decisions led them to their doomed fate, death, hence the theme of death and freewill. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern state of confusion throughout the play leads the characters helpless to make their own choices. They lack the ability of free will, even when given the option to use their free will they remain passive and oblivious, ultimately leading to their death. Death a theme that is clear in the entirety of the play. From the exposition with the coin toss to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s actual death at the end of the play.