Shakespeare/Stoppard - Context
William Shakespeare’s canonical play Hamlet and Tom Stoppard’s absurdist drama Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern Are Dead (R+G) were written in two strikingly unique periods of time. The
beliefs and values held in these two periods had a profound effect on the two texts. In order to
explore elements of Hamlet and make them relevant in the modern context, Stoppard has
imaginatively re-shaped the language, structure and significant themes of the play, challenging the
views presented by Shakespeare and encouraging his audience to confront their own.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet developed the popular Elizabethan form of revenge-tragedy; an actionbased, death-filled genre of plays that deals with a flawed protagonist’s quest to avenge a terrible
and ‘unnatural’ crime. The play was written in England in 1601 at the commencement of the
Renaissance period; an era defined by rigid social stratification and structured by strong religious
beliefs.
Written by Stoppard in 1964, the tragicomedy R+G was born out of a period of intense
questioning into the purpose of existence. As an absurdist play, R+G was part of a movement that
originated as a reaction to the atrocities of WWII, and was linked with the newly popular
philosophy of existentialism. Absurdist theatre typically involved very little if any action, few
characters, and a non-episodic structure, all aimed at intellectually challenging the audience to
consider their own values and beliefs. As opposed to Hamlet’s mainstream, largely uneducated
audience, R+G was aimed at the literary elite, who had supposedly lost all faith, both in religion
and the ability of the upper levels of society to rule humanity.
The structure and language forms used by Stoppard are important to his transformation of Hamlet.
Largely departing from the traditional episodic structure of Shakespeare’s text, RAGAD is a
chaotic, formless play. For most of the play, the ‘protagonists’ Ros and Guil engage in humorous and often meaningless - repartee filled with rhetorical questions, repeated dialogue, non-sequiturs
and double meaning; reflecting the characters’ perpetual state of confusion and uncertainty.
ROS: Exactly.
GUIL: Exactly what?
ROS: Exactly why.
GUIL: Exactly why what?
ROS: What?
GUIL: Why?
Stoppard’s characters are helpless, and rely completely on the structure of Hamlet to dictate their
existence. It is only when the play collides with the plot of Hamlet that the story is progressed, and
any action occurs. As a frustrated Guil exclaims:
“All we get is incidents! Is it too much to ask for a little sustained action?!”
This atmosphere of confusion is intended by Stoppard to reflect the existentialist values of the
1960’s, demonstrating the lack of purpose and meaning inherent in society.
Intertextuality is used by Stoppard by including sections of Hamlet in his play, allowing him to
contrast the highly formal, poetic verse used by the characters in Hamlet with the colloquial prose
used by Ros and Guil in R+G.
Gertrude: And I beseech you instantly to visit
my too much changed son.
…
Ros: “I want to go home!”
This highlights the gulf between the Elizabethan era and Stoppard’s, and increases the connection
between the audience and Ros and Guil, as their language alludes to that which was familiar to
1960’s Londoners. Stoppard uses language in this way to move the perspective of the play away
from the aristocracy of Hamlet and towards the common man, providing his audience with a new
perspective on Shakespeare’s play.
The themes of fate and free will are central to Hamlet and R+G. In Shakespeare’s play, the story
revolves around the actions and choices of the protagonist Hamlet. Hamlet has the freedom to
choose his own path through life, but believes strongly in a God who has ultimate control over his
fate. This view is encapsulated in his statement to Horatio in the final act of the play:
“We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
In contrast, Stoppard’s characters demonstrate the more existentialist views of the 1960’s. He
transforms Hamlet by bringing two minor, mainly off-stage on-stage as the main characters of his
play. Dramatic irony is employed by Stoppard by naming the play R+G Are Dead, the audience
realising that despite Guil’s desperate misgivings:
“There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said – no.”
the fate of the characters was sealed before R+G was even written. Stoppard transforms the power
and control of a Prince in Shakespeare’s Hamlet into the confusion and helplessness of the lowly
Ros and Guil. As Ros realises:
“We have no control. None at all.”
Stoppard thus brings the existentialist values of uncertainty and futility to the everyday world,
confronting his audience with the idea that, ultimately, they too have no control over their lives.
The two texts also explore the pervasive theme of death in ways that reflect Stoppard and
Shakespeare’s different contexts. Death in Shakespeare’s era held a special significance due to his
society’s strong ties to religion. Since one’s life and death was believed to dictate the way one
would spend eternity, much care was taken by Elizabethans to adhere strictly to their religious
beliefs. This attention to religion and the afterlife in Shakespeare’s era is evidenced in Hamlet’s
first soliloquy, as his belief in God prevents him from committing suicide:
“…that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!”
After the atrocities of WWII however, the value of life was continually questioned. The perceived
lack of meaning in existence in Stoppard’s modern era meant that death itself was trivialised.
Stoppard’s subversion of the violent, romanticised deaths of Hamlet’s characters into Guil’s
existentialist theory of ‘disappearance’ reflects this new view of death as simply the undramatic,
inevitable conclusion of life.
“...it’s not gasps and blood and falling about ... it’s just a man failing to reappear, that’s all.”
By imaginatively transforming the language, structure and major themes of Shakespeare’s play,
Stoppard has created a new text that explores the values of Hamlet from a different angle in order
to make them relevant to his context. Stoppard encourages his audience to revaluate their values
and beliefs, and provides them with a new perspective on Hamlet. No longer a theatrical retelling
of the struggles of an ancient Prince of a royal court, RAGAD is a play that deals with the modern
fears and dilemmas of a modern audience.