Rosencrantz - A gentleman and childhood friend of Hamlet.

Along with his companion, Guildenstern, Rosencrantz seeks to uncover the cause of Hamlets strange behavior but finds himself confused by his role in the action of the play. Rosencrantz has a carefree and artless personality that masks deep dread about his fate. Stoppard deliberately refrains from giving much description of either of his main characters. Both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are meant to be everyman figures, more or less average men who represent humanity in general. Nevertheless, both men have specific character traits. Rosencrantz is decidedly the more easygoing of the two, happy to continue flipping coins with little concern about the possible implications of their pattern of landing heads up. Rosencrantz spends a great deal of the play confused by both what is happening around him and Guildensterns reactions to their situation, but he rarely engages in the overt despair that is characteristic of Guildenstern. Rosencrantz is pragmatic and seeks simple and efficient solutions to the pairs problems rather than philosophical explanations of them, a trait that leads Guildenstern to believe that his friend is complacent and unwilling or unable to think seriously and deeply. Rosencrantz reveals himself to be more complicated than Guildenstern believes, however, and his apparently straightforward attitude of pragmatism and breezy bewilderment peels back to reveal deeper feelings, both positive and negative. Despite their continued frustrations and problems, Rosencrantz does not lose sight of Guildensterns feelings, and he awkwardly tries to cheer his friend up by offering him the opportunity to win several easy bets. Rosencrantz also tries to help Guildenstern in a more serious and sophisticated way by encouraging him to find personal happiness and to soldier on in the face of apparent chaos. Rosencrantzs positive attitude is not the limit of his feelings, and twice he feels terror at the realization of his own mortality. First, he gets afraid during his discussion of what it would be like to be in a coffin. Later, at the end of the play, he feels fear as he realizes that he is about to die. Rosencrantz may not be an actively philosophical man like his friend Guildenstern, but he is nevertheless capable of sensitive thought. Guildenstern - A gentleman and childhood friend of Hamlet. Accompanied by Rosencrantz, Guildenstern tries to discover what is plaguing Hamlet as well as his own purpose in the world. Although frequently disconcerted by the world around him, Guildenstern is a meditative man who believes that he can understand his life. On the surface, Guildenstern seems to be the polar opposite of his friend Rosencrantz. Guildenstern is markedly more anxious than Rosencrantz about the strange circumstances in which they find themselves, beginning with his deep concern about the coin-flipping episode. Unlike Rosencrantz, Guildenstern wants desperately to understand their situation, and he tries to reason his way through the incidents that plague them. Guildensterns belief that there is a rational explanation for their predicament leads him to sudden bursts of strong emotion as he grows increasingly frustrated by his inability to make sense of the world around him. Guildensterns frustration is heightened by what he sees as Rosencrantzs jovial indifference, and he lashes out at his friend on several occasions. Guildensterns angry despair reaches its peak near the end of the play. His realization that he and Rosencrantz are about to die without having understood anything leads him to attack the Player in a fit of fury and hopelessness.

Guildenstern is not simply a blend of rationality and passion. Subtle gestures within the play show him to be capable of compassion and sympathetic understanding. Although Guildenstern is certainly angry at Rosencrantz at numerous points, he quickly consoles and comforts his friend when the need arises. After arriving at Elsinore and becoming even more confused by Claudiuss reception of the pair, Guildenstern soothes a tongue-tied Rosencrantz and promises him that they will be able to return home soon. Similarly, after belittling Rosencrantz for failing to say anything original when they are onboard the ship to England, Guildenstern recognizes his friends suffering and promises him that everything will turn out okay. Though he often acts as if he would rather be alone than be with Rosencrantz, Guildensterns final speech in the play has him alone onstage, turning to look for his friend, unable to tell which one of them is which.

The Player - The leader of the traveling actors known as the Tragedians. The Player is an enigmatic figure. His cunning wit and confident air suggest that he knows more than he is letting on. The impoverished state of his acting troupe makes him eager to please others, but only on his own terms. The Player is the most mysterious of the plays characters. He seems to possess a far greater understanding of the events transpiring than does either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. The Players witty speeches often hint at the possibility that he could reveal the truth if only Rosencrantz and Guildenstern knew how to ask the right questions. Upon first meeting the pair, the Player claims to recognize them as artists like himself, a description that implies an awareness that they are all merely actors in a drama that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not understand and can barely acknowledge. Similarly, the Player makes several remarks that reflect on Rosencrantz and Guildensterns plight, although in a way that the pair fails to grasp, such as when he tells them that life is a terrible gamble or when he says that the normal experience of existence is one of confusion and doubt. The Players unexplained mastery of Rosencrantz and Guildensterns experiences extends to their final moments, when he seems to have anticipated their deaths and the complicated mix of feelings they go through as their mortality descends upon them. The Players air of mysterious control and omniscience contrasts sharply with his shameful occupation as a pimp for the men in his acting troupe, whose bodies he will happily sell if the opportunity arises. Guildenstern holds this fact against the Player and tricks him into an unwinnable bet, partly out of disgust and a desire to punish the Player for his amoral attitude. Although the Player occasionally seems embarrassed by his profession, he generally retains a haughty attitude, secure in his knowledge of Rosencrantz and Guildensterns fate and fully aware that his troupe fills an unacknowledged social need and will therefore always be in demand. The Players confidence is also apparent in his serious belief in the integrity of theater in general and the Tragedians

performances in particular. This belief infuriates the skeptical and philosophical Guildenstern, but the Player remains entirely unflappable in the face of Guildensterns rage. The Players combination of a lowly, shameful appearance with dazzling wit, mysterious power, and defiant confidence make him an unlikely but fascinating ringmaster for the plays circus of confusion.

Hamlet - The prince of Denmark and a childhood friend of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet is thrown into a deep personal crisis when his father dies and his uncle takes the throne and marries Hamlets mother. Hamlets strange behavior confuses the other characters, especially Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Theme of language and communication

In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, the two title characters often play with words. They pun off of each other's words without much intention of moving their dialogue toward a set purpose. Instead, they are simply goofing around, like two kids throwing a ball back and forth. At the same time, however, the consistently poor communication in the play seems to hint at a broader breakdown in understanding between the characters that may help send the play into its tragic spiral. Language is sometimes seen as an empowering way of writing one's own fate, but for Ros and Guil it often seems like an impotent tool, best suited for idle speculation. The Methaporic Language ""Metaphoric language in Tom Stoppard`s plays has a crucial role; the nature of language itself, how it comes to have significance within context and how the exchanges between characters maybe interpreted differently by an audience. What Stoppard wants to insist on his plays is the unreliability of language in an unreliable and meaningless world. He goes beyond Absurdism by breaking the distance between audience and the actors. In his play, human beings are unable to communicate with each other, because they are afraid of using a language that does not have a particular form. Sometimes it is serious, sometimes witty, sometimes meaningless and sometimes difficult to comprehend. Sometimes the turn in language from literal meaning to metaphorical meaning is delayed, sometimes it is has hasted, sometimes it is elided entirely. The focus of this study is on the varying degrees of wittiness. Three kinds of metaphor: Simple, complex, difficult have found in this paper. There is a relationship between wit, transference and interference in the process of creating metaphor. Tom Stoppard`s early play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead has provided the readers with examples of witty metaphor in generating absurdity. Keyterms: Metaphor, stoppardian style, Lack of communication, The Theater of Absurd, literal / nonliteral language, verbal -humor, word-play, wit.""

Major Themes Existentialism Existentialism is the philosophical movement that focuses on the plight of the individual to seek meaning and purpose in a vast universe. Ultimately, the individual is responsible for his or her own actions despite the prevailing uncertainty about right or wrong. Many have examined plays such as Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Pirandello's Six Characters in Search for an Author , and Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead through an existential lens. Key characteristics of an existential work include the presence of anti-heroes, unstable knowledge of the past, and unstable identities. Identity In Shakespeare's work, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not given distinct personalities. In Hamlet they are stock characters whose staccato dialogue and Elizabethan wit serve merely as comedic devices. Their primary purpose is to relieve the dramatic tension present within the rest of Hamlet. Stoppard lifts these characters from Shakespeare, but places them in the foreground, although together they lack the depth to sustain the action that Hamlet sustains alone. Yet Stoppard's genius lies in using their lack of depth and inability to sustain action as the very center of the events in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. For all intents and purposes, the two are indistinguishable and dispensable. Characters such as Claudius, Gertrude, and even Hamlet often call them by the wrong names; in fact Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are often unable to distinguish themselves. In[Hamlet], they are dispensable, executed for no real reason and unable to garner much sympathy from the audience. In Stoppard's play, however, although they meet the same fate the journey that they take to get there is far different. Stoppard humanizes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by imbuing them with a deep-seated universal desire: the need for meaning. Even though they do not achieve any redeeming purpose, the audience can sympathize with the characters as they vacillate between awareness and understanding - never really achieving the latter. Alienation Philosophically, alienation refers to a imminent sense of estrangement and exile, a concept clearly illustrated in Camus' Stranger. In modern theatre, alienation also refers a technique used in many absurd dramas. In order to alienate the audience, the playwright typically uses language as a barrier to communication. Language becomes confusing; logic becomes circular. In these plays, the world is depicted as overwhelmingly incomprehensible and opaque; the characters are never able to achieve true understanding. Stoppard exercises many of these techniques in his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Part of the duo's comedy is their verbal play. Evasion is the very object of the game "Questions". Although they are talking to one another, nothing is being said; no communication is being achieved. Stoppard also builds on the motif of how incomprehensible the world is through the character of Guildenstern. Guildenstern constantly seeks to understand the world around him. He wants to know how it is possible for a coin to land almost a hundred times in a row heads up. He wants to know what is in the letter they have been sent. And finally, when they discover that death is inevitable, Guildenstern is

enraged primarily because they have been told so little throughout the process. The goal of alienation is to remove the illusions of purpose and meaning infused into people's daily existence so that the audience gets a sense of their true existential condition. Determinism Throughout the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are painstakingly aware that there is a design within which they operate. Stoppard chooses Shakespeare's Hamlet as the framework the characters are constrained by. Although the audience and the Player are fully aware of the plot, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not. When seeking Guildenstern's critique of the play the troupe has just rehearsed, the Player states, "There's a design at work in all art - surely you know that? Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion." The plot has been predetermined. The characters have very limited autonomy, and are forced to entertain themselves while they wait or until further action takes place. When Rosencrantz wants to hasten the progress of things, Guildenstern warns his friend, "Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned." The script of Hamlet defines Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, controlling their very sense of identity and limiting their agency. In his play, Stoppard uses Shakespeare's script as a device with which to explore the very nature of being written versus writing, and the haunting possibility that the stage is a more accurate depiction of human existence than previous religious or philosophical theories. Free Will Free will is an illusion in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Instead of true choice, they are presented with limited alternatives. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the two characters are not given distinct identities. When Rosencrantz becomes frustrated about never knowing for sure whether his name is Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, Guildenstern replies, "We are comparatively fortunate; we might have been left to sift the whole field of human nomenclature, like two blind men looting a bazaar for their own portraits...At least we are presented with alternatives." In other words, their freedom has significant limits. When Rosencrantz attempts to talk to Hamlet on his own terms ("off-script"), he is unable to do so. When Rosencrantz attempts to play with the Queen, his efforts are averted when he realizes that his target is actually Alfred dressed in women's clothing. In many ways, England represents freedom to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They believe that once they arrive they will be rid of Hamlet and free to continue on as they please, having completed their royal duties. On the surface, the boat becomes the means by which they gain their freedom, an escape from the demands of the court. The characters are led to believe that they have choice, but it ultimately emerges that they only have alternatives. By the end of the play, they realize that what they thought would bring them freedom actually is actually a vessel carrying them towards the inevitable: death. Awareness of Self Part of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's inability to pin down their own identities lies in the lack of character development given to each in Shakespeare's original work. In Hamlet they are not intended to be individuals with deep philosophical ideas; they are nothing more than comedic stock characters. They are written to be fools, and with that destiny comes an lack of self-

awareness. Rosencrantz introduces himself by the wrong name, and neither of them recognizes themselves as the spies in the dumb-show. Thy are unable to see themselves reflected in the art of theater; they cannot foresee their fates, and thus cannot avert their own deaths.