Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

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In the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead the author, Tom Stoppard uses the two main characters to allude to the real world’s lack of individuality and numerous amount of identities people present. Throughout the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are repeatedly asked, and ask themselves who is Rosencrantz and who is Guildenstern. By the end of the play, no determination has been made between the two characters. The only way the reader could tell who it who is by looking at the dialogue printed in the script, but watching the play or the movie the two characters are almost indistinguishable.
Everyone wants an audience, whether admitted to or not, everyone has an act that they want to be seen.“We're actors... We pledged our identities, secure in the conventions of our trade, that someone would be watching.” In the real world, different people want similar types of attention and everyone has distinct masks for specific people. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are always trying to please Claudius and Gertrude yet they are also trying to please Hamlet. In front of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern alter the way they portray themselves in front of Claudius and Gertrude. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the actors who pledge their identities, to secure their fate, …show more content…

At ease?” They cannot make choices for themselves they always need to be told what to do. Stoppard shows the audience through Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that life may not provide any answers and that people have to do the best they can within parameters that they cannot control.They are so detached from any meaning in their own lives that they are completely incapable of recognizing death even when it is spelled out right in front of them. At some point, people have to act on assumptions and their own personal perceptions of reality. Otherwise, they will never be able to act at

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