Summary and Analysis of Ros and Guil are Dead

Tom Stoppard:

• Born in 1937 and is still alive and well
• Married with four kids
• Wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1967
• Directed the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead  in 1990

Setting:

There is a strong chance that the whole play takes place in the Players’ caravan and is timeless as it occurs every time we read or view the play but within the caravan the setting is as follows:

• “A place without any visible character.” (pg 11)
• During the Elizabethan era   
• In a forest
• Elsinore
• On a boat
• Maybe in England

Characters

• Rosencrantz (Ros) - the innocently blissful man who is lost within the play
• Guildenstern (Guil) - Ros’ companion through the play who tries to make a logical conclusion from the non logical and from doing so is often angry
• The Player- the only person who seems to know what is going on, he has a band of players
• The crew from Shakespeare’s Hamlet - these characters, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, and Hamlet, all act as they do in Shakespeare’s play with minute differences

Plot

Act I

• Ros and Guil toss coins to pass time, Guil becomes frustrated and worried as each coin lands on heads
• Go to the forest and run into the players
• argue with the players about their profession and then are sucked into the wagon and thrown into Elsinore where they see Hamlet and Ophelia half dressed
• Greeted by Claudius and Gertrude who  mistake Ros and Guil for each other  
• Get directions to find out why Hamlet is acting so strange
• In a hallway by themselves, Ros and Guil, discuss everything and nothing including how to greet Hamlet, what they think they remember, the question game, and the frustrating situation they are in
• See Polonius and Hamlet finishing a part of Hamlet
• Greet Hamlet

Act II

• Finish the discussion with Hamlet from Hamlet act II scene ii
• Talk about the players with Hamlet and Hamlet claims he is not mad
• Ros and Guil discuss their conversation with Hamlet and Ros believes they lost the game
• Ros and Guil cannot figure out the time or direction
• Player, Hamlet, and Polonius discuss the play for tomorrow and Hamlet welcomes Ros and Guil again
• Ros and Guil talk to the Player, who is salty about being left to perform to no audience in the forest
• Continue to talk to the Player who informs them he can come and go as he pleases unlike them and the three of them gossip about Hamlet
• Player leaves Ros and Guil discuss chaotically again
• Gertrude and Claudius  talks to them about Hamlet and they inform them about the play
• Ros and Guil discuss leaving but do not because Hamlet and Ophelia enter followed by the players
• Players perform The Murder of Gonzago (Hamlet)
• Hamlet interrupts by yelling at Ophelia and they are followed by Claudius and Polonius
• Play starts back up and the player talks about death in a play
• Play in front of Hamlet and family ends and Ros and Guil go back to discussing directions and time
• Claudius tells Ros and Guil about Hamlet and Polonius’ death
• Ros and Guil talk about finding Hamlet but instead wait and Hamlet comes in dragging Polonius’ body
• Hamlet comes back in and they ask to escort him to the king
• Claudius comes in Hamlet leaves but then Hamlet is escorted back in with an escort
• They are then at the harbor about to board and Hamlet talks to the passing soldiers
• Ros and Guil discuss never knowing where they are

Act III

• On the boat Ros and Guil believe they are dead
• Ros and Guil talk about how dark it is
• Ros finds Hamlet sleeping
• Play a money game where Ros cheats the by having coins in both hands then none
• Ros and Guil discuss their plans and the letter
• R and G  practice meeting the key and then open the letter discovering they are signing Hamlet’s death warrant
• Brings on a new discussion on friendship and duty as characters
• Find the players hiding in a barrel
• Players are running from the King
• Go to bed and Hamlet changes the letter
• Ros, Guil and the Player continue discussion of running from the king as if they hadn’t fallen asleep
• Pirates take Hamlet’s barrel
• Discuss Hamlet’s disappearance and then Ros and Guil tell the Player about the letter which now says it is R and G who are to be hung for treason
• Guil “kills” the Player
• Ros and Guil are hung
• Ends with the last scene in Hamlet in which Horatio tells the story

Techniques:

1. The fourth wall is broken to create a tension within the audience and to draw attention to the fact that we are not characters in a play.
2. Stoppard uses repetition to add to the confusion throughout the play. This is important as the play is already confusing and the characters have no sense of what is going on.
3. The play keeps a comedic tone on a serious matter to appeal to the intellect in many ways.
4. The setting is kept vague to add an air of mystery and to create the possibility of it being a play within a play.
5. Stoppard has his characters confused except for the Player to show the distinction between us and the characters.

Quotes:

    “For some of us it is performance, for others, patronage. They are two sides of the same coin, or let us say, being as there are so many of us, the same side of two coins.” (23)

The Player is directly telling Ros and Guil that they are the same as the players with only a slight difference. But the player is also addressing the audience by referencing the number of people present and claiming that in the case that Ros and Guil are performing for us they are the “same side of two coins” which is unlike being the patronage.

    “Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It’s the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn’t make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.” (67)

Here the Player is telling not only Ros and Guil, but also the audience, that truth is whatever you would like it to be. This is Stoppard’s message to the audience that we decide what our truth is and as long as we believe it is true, it is our truth.

    “Be happy- if you’re not even happy what’s so good about surviving? (He picks himself up) We’ll be all right. I suppose we just go on.” (121)

Ros is trying to convince Guil that no matter what situation they are thrown in they must be happy. No matter what you do in life if you are not happy you will have a pointless life.

Theme:

    Stoppard suggests that as we are not characters restricted by the design of a higher power, we have the opportunity to chose our own direction and identity.

Through the use of the previously stated techniques Stoppard creates a world of chaos. In this world Ros and Guil are left to question their lives which they have no control over, unlike the audience who have control over their lives. This is stressed by Stoppard continually pointing out the characters are part of a play. At one point the Player even says that actors are the “opposite of people” (63) which shows that we can take the opposite course of the actors and characters in this play.  

   

Response to Course Materials

So February has been filled with great stuff! We started this month off finishing Hamlet. finally, and starting Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. This play is my favorite compared to all that we have read this year. Although on the surface it may seem as if it is just a silly play, there is so much in it that incites questions and thoughts. I am so excited with the direction of our conversations everyday like what the players really are, people, characters, more than characters but less than people. It makes me want to discuss it now! This is why it is my favorite, I have a strong desire to talk about it even outside of the class, lately I have found myself asking people at work, at home, and even at cheer practices about it. I normally do not talk about what I learn at school but this play has effected me like anatomy, when I learn something new in anatomy I tell everybody about it. 

Enough of my rambling, something else that was useful, at least to me, was the work we did on properly introducing an open prompt. This was helpful because creating a question made me think about what I was expecting in the answer which I guess is what Ms. Holmes was trying to make us realize in the first few months or grading other people's prompts. By knowing what is expected it is easier to achieve a higher level of excellence. 

open post

2009. A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

As a society we have come to recognize certain objects that represent more than what they are. We classify them as known symbols, for example a cross is used to represent Christ and his suffering. This symbol is known in almost every culture and is understood with out explanation, but not all symbols are so well known. A box can mean almost anything but in Edward Albee's The American Dream, Grandma's boxes represent a set of values that are important to her, and the play.

The American Dream is a play that shows grandma as a role model and as a woman that has worked hard for what she has. She lived through the great depression and sacrificed her dinner for her daughter who grew up in a generation that does not care about values. Grandma puts up with her daughter through the majority of the play but has all of her belongings, all of her values and the values of the old american dream, packed up in boxes ready to be moved.

Grandma's boxes seem simple on the outside and so they are pushed around by her daughter. At one point her daughter, Mommy, even steps on them. This shows that Mommy and her generation only care about what is on the outside, as Mommy even remarked about how she had the prettiest packaged lunch at school and how she always gave the food inside to her grandma at the end of the day. The wrapping of the lunch box is the opposite of what Grandma cares about. Grandma wants the substance inside the package, she ate the food in the lunch and she put all of her belongings in plain boxes because she cares more about what is in the boxes than what is on the outside.

  The turning point in this play when the new american dream, the Young Man, moves Grandma's boxes out of the apartment into a van. Here it is clear that the new values of appearances and perfection take the spot of the old values of substance and hard work. The boxes are being removed from the play, and removed from the character's lives completely. Here Albee shows through the symbol of the box the difference in generations and he warns against removing the boxes with the old values of life. These values helped Grandma become the strong character in this play and without the boxes there is nothing in the apartment, nothing in life.

The symbol of the boxes is a large symbol that carries on the Edward Albee's The American Dream. Through the boxes the generational differences are made clear and his hope for a better future is heard. Although these boxes are not known in every culture it is an important symbol, almost equally as important as a cross because the boxes do their job well and show the reader something deeper than what the play appears to be.