When we first see Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Guildenstern is flipping a coin and Rosencrantz is calling out ‘heads’. Each time heads comes up and this is beginning to annoy Guildenstern as he feels that he can never win. He uses a number of reasons to try to explain this – “The law of averages means that if six monkeys were thrown up in the air for long enough they would land on the tails about as often as they would land on their [heads]” – but he is eventually lost on the recurring result.
Tom Stoppard’s use of the repeated result of the coins is his very first attempt to bring the audience into his own philosophical mindset. The play, as a whole, is on the themes of role and identity and he is immediately planning out the state of play. As the play progresses, we see that the coin flipping game is a strong holistic metaphor for the question it prompts: what are characters?
The Infinity of the Play
The play will repeat: that is the message that Stoppard is giving his audience. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern do not have any memory of what has happened before the play and they are unsure, to a point, about what is happening during the play. They are merely pawns in a much larger play, for many; but to many others they are also the stars of their own play.
This is their identity – as both stars and sub-characters. They, like any other characters, are the lead roles in their own play and are also sub-characters in everyone else’s play. This will repeat itself, as will every play, and so too will the events within the play. It is then, perhaps, fair to say that Rosencrantz & Guildenstern were not supposed to be flipping the coin more than once – in Shakespeare’s version, for example.
But, in this play, they experiment and discover that everything is predetermined. Their roles are set and nothing can be done. “Even a single coin has music in it.” – The Player.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern / The Tragedians
Their roles within the play are parodied by the tragedians who enter and attempt to perform for them. “We are actors; the opposite of people”, says the lead player who seems to exist to put Rosencrantz & Guildenstern’s roles into context. He is regularly giving insights into acting and providing the reasons for Rosencrantz & Guildenstern’s problems.
For example, their memory loss: “You catch us at the very point of decadence – by this time tomorrow we might have forgotten everything we know.” What The Player is suggesting is that actors only know what they need to know at any one time. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern will soon be the same so that, when the play is performed again, they will be in the same state of confused memory.
Names
Another point on which Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are confused is their names:
“Rosencrantz: My name is Guildenstern and this is Rosencrantz…”
Their confusion here is based in the problem of identity and in discovering who they are. This shows that they are unsure as to themselves even in name and that is why they will never truly know for sure what is going on.
It’s a Game
Throughout the play, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern seem to be playing games with each other. The ‘question’ game they play for “practice” – using tennis rules – shows the very height of this. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern seem to be constantly practicing for something that never actually happens; preparing themselves over and over for an event that we know will never occur.
The epitome of the ‘tennis’ game is when Guildenstern realises, for one fleeting moment, what is going on and shouts: “What in God’s name is going on?” This is proof that, even though they are partaking in it, neither Rosencrantz nor Guildenstern knows exactly what is going on.
“It’s a matter of asking the right questions and giving away as little as we can,” says Guildenstern. “It’s a game.” This shows that Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are clearly cautious of what they are doing and who they are talking to. They know that they must be careful; but they are not sure why. What’s more, they appreciate that their existence may be nothing more than “a game.” Since they spend so much time playing games, maybe they are living out their expectations of reality in the only way they know how.
Who Controls Who?
“We’ll stoop to anything if that’s your bent”, says the Player. This is a vital line, as it posts the opinion that the audience is in control and it is the viewer’s wants – and bents – that define the actor’s performance. It is the actor who controls the character, so it is fair to say that the audience controls what the character does. This is the rule of the Player and so the rule also of the play.
This sense of a lack of control is evident throughout Rosencrantz & Guildenstern’s discussions. “We transport you into a world of intrigue and illusion.” Is this to say then that the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are merely illusion to us or to them as well? For Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, it is clearly a world of intrigue, as they spend the majority of the play trying to understand it; but how much is it a world of illusion?
A Play About Identity
“There’s one born every minute,” (the Player). I believe that this is one of the key quotes of the play as it sums up its ultimate ideology. They play is about identity and the idea that one person is born every minute translates into the play as one character is created every minute. Each one of these characters is stuck in an endless loop of plays, destined to repeat until the ends of time.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are just a very small part of a much larger play and their destinies are sealed because of this. The beauty of the play is that it could have been based around any two characters from any play; the effect and result would be the same.
Sources:
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard
Daniel Lambert - Daniel Lambert is a screenwriter and essayist. Born in Warrington, Cheshire in 1990, he attended Frodsham High School, Helsby High School ...
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