Summary and Analysis of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead 3/11/13

Author: Tom Stoppard
Originally born in Czechoslovakia, but later relocated to Britain. He became a journalist, dramatic critic, and eventually a playwright.

Setting: Elizabethan Era, in the middle of nowhere, Hamlet's court, a boat.

Plot:

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are lost, flipping coins mindlessly. The coins come up as heads repeatedly. They debate probability and chance while they question time and how long they have been there. They have no recollection of how they got there or what they were doing. They meet a troup of actors who have resorted to putting on sexual performances because they are having difficulty making money. Guildenstern uses their coin flipping to make a bet with the player. The player loses. He offers to give up Alfred as payment in place of money, but Guildenstern asks for a play.
Realizing that they were there because they were sent for by a messenger, they find themselves in Elsinore. They witness a scene of Hamlet where Hamlet and Ophelia argue. The tragedians perform The Murder of Gonzago, with the player narrating. The player explains that language is not sufficient to get the point across. Rosencrantz stops the rehearsal and realizes that the "spies" onstage are dressed exactly as himself and Guildenstern. The spies slowly die as they talk about fake death versus a real death. The stage goes black. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern seem dazed and confused as they try to discover which way East is. The stage goes black again.
They awake to find themselves on a boat at sea. Rosencrantz puts coins in both hands and asks Guildenstern to choose which hand has the coin. Guildenstern guesses correctly multiple times before realizes that there are coins in both hands. They realize that they have a letter from the King. The stage becomes dark again as Hamlet blows out a candle and replaces the letter with his own.
Pirates aboard the ship and Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet jump into barrels before the lights dim out.


Significant Characters

Rosencrantz: A kind hearted friend from Hamlet's childhood. He is often seen in the play with Guildenstern. He is often confused about who he is and what he is supposed to be doing throughout the play.

Guildenstern: Rosencrantz' companion and Hamlet's childhood friend. He is not afraid to manipulate people in order to benefit himself, which can be seen with the coin toss with Rosencrantz and the Player. He often tries to reason what his purpose is.

The Player: The leader of The Tragedians, he is confident and intelligent. He tries to get money for himself and the others in his troupe, but due to the hard times, has difficulty doing so.

Tragedians: Desperate for money, they stoop to sexual acts. They show the lengths that people will go to to survive and the desperation that humans must come to as pawns in life.

Point of View: 
The play is written in third person and focuses on the actions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Significant Quotes:
Life is a gamble, at terrible odds—if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it.
This quote reflects a significant motif in the play: the comparison of probability and chance to fate. It raises the question of how much our actions truly affect the true outcome. It also shows that we as humans have little say in our role in society and ultimately life. We are merely pawns and players in the game that we call life.  

 
Symbols:

Coins-- throughout the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are seen flipping coins. Stoppard is essentially highlighting the motif of probability and fate. By demonstrating the coin almost always landing on heads, Stoppard shows that the laws of probability are not always correct. Not everything can be explained with such laws.

The Actors-- the actors represent desperate and poor people in the world. The actors are players in the play. They are acting as pawns. Essentially, the are just tools that the Player seems to control. Seemingly brainless and stooping to any level necessary, they are just a part of a larger game-- the plays that the act in.


Theme:

Life is complex and unexplainable. People play a minimal role in the overall picture of life and are foolish in their endeavors. 
As the play Hamlet questions the meaning of life, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead questions the roles that humans play in life. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern struggle to answer this question, as well as the question of what it means to be alive/dead. Their constant questions regarding their identity or their stumbling and inarticulate answers show that they are confused and mentally dim when answering this question. The inapplication of the laws of physics as well as the laws of probability shows that unlike science or math, no laws cannot be applied to math, and life itself is an unanswerable question.