Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

Edward Said once wrote about exile, “It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” However, Said later described exile as, “a potent, even enriching” experience. In the play, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, the two lifelong friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have endured the two sides to exile through the companionship that they found with each other. Their time away from Denmark left them often in another state of confused mental faculties in which they would simply exist instead of live. Though this declined state of awareness is an “unhealable rift” in the minds of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern it was, “a potent, even
The evidence of this confusion was specifically exhibited as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern discussed their first memories together. The conversation never went into great details as neither truly had memories of their childhood and their native land causing anxiety and confusion between them. This caused them to taper off the conversation and not discuss the past too often since being away from home caused their memories to become extinct. This mutual first memory display’s Stoppard’s use of forming Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into one individual since neither have separate memories of their life before their oldest recollection, “we were sent for,” which had occurred earlier that day. The lack of memory is what Stoppard used to enhance their lack of thought because he turned them into two men who simply existed as one. This never allowed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to become their own people since they always had to rely on each other due to their seemingly shared brain and
As Claudius had sent them to deliver Hamlet to their death, it was their final moments that reflected the lethality of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s dual awareness. Hamlet himself due to his ability to be an individual and aware of his own surroundings was able to escape the execution that awaited him in England. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern however, contrasted Hamlet’s individualism and therefore paid the ultimate price of evaporation into the universe. The prior actions taken by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were catalyzed by their separation from their homes and lives. Their separation from their native land and memories as discussed earlier sent them into a constant perplex puzzlement of the world around them. This was evident at the end of the play when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern could not comprehend or know how to act when they read the letter ordering their own deaths instead of Hamlet’s. Not only however, was Hamlet’s individualism and Rosencrantz’s dual consciousness brought to light by Stoppard so was the fact that Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were unaware due to their insecurities. Hamlet at the end of the play had lost his humanity reaching a psychopathic point of which was why the welfare of his, “old friends”, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was completely meaningless. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in contrast deeply cared how the people around them