Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

Most people would like to think that their life has some kind of meaning or purpose. However how this meaning in life is obtained can cause some differing views. One may believe that they were born with a purpose in life and the other may believe that it is their own responsibility to give their own life meaning. While the first belief may be the preferred option, it doesn’t seem very practical. Existentialists believe that one must give meaning to their own life, which in all reality seems to be the truth. In the novels Their Eyes Were Watching God, Crime and Punishment, The Awakening, The Stranger, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the existential view that the individual is responsible for giving their own life meaning is confirmed
In Act Three, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have a conversation after they realize that their mission they were sent on is now useless. They say, “Guildenstern: We’ve travelled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation. Rosencrantz: 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.” Guildenstern has clearly determined that life has no meaning to it at all and that he is just waiting for death. However, Rosencrantz recognizes that they must make their own meaning of life. Rosencrantz indicates that the fact that life as a whole does not have any obvious meaning does not mean that it is impossible for any individual life to have meaning. Rosencrantz’s response is an attempt to find meaning and purpose on precisely this individual level. When faced with the chaos of life, Rosencrantz decides that his personal purpose will be to seek pleasure for himself. They begin to realize that they must make their life meaningful on their own rather than by the expectations of others, supporting the existential
He murders two women and is now debating on whether to turn himself into the police or not. This ultimately leads to Raskolnikov’s existential crisis: to live or to die. In the novel Raskolnikov says “Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or think, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!" This shows that by the end of the novel, Raskolnikov understands that he must make his life meaningful in order for him to want to live. He knows that he was born into this world with no meaning and he has to give himself a purpose in life to strive towards, no matter what society says. Society wants Raskolnikov to just get executed, but he decides to serve his time in person so that he could still make meaning in his life after he got out of prison. Raskolnikov came to understand that only he could fulfill his purpose in life and he must live in order to do