Honors Rosencrantz and Guildenstern essay

“We do on stage the things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else.” This was said in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by the Player a character in this play that seems to know a little more than everyone else. Throughout this play Rosencrantz and Gildenstern explore the concept of being in a play with the help of The Player who is an actor himself. So even though Rosenscrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is based on Hamlet, it is a literary significant play because it has multiple literary devices, a storyline that explores existentialism, and brings a new perspective to the great play Hamlet.
Allegory, Allusion, Foreshadowing, Characterization, and Tragedy. These are just some of the Literary devices that make Rosencrantz and Guildenstern great. Foreshadowing plays a major part in this play because if you’ve read Hamlet, or even the title of the book, you know that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are going to die. “But you’re not dead”, “I didn’t say they started to grow after death!” this is interesting because they don’t know that they are destined to die but they hint at it. Characterization is shown through the fact that they don’t remember a life before the play starts and they grow to start to discover curious things about the universe they live in. I haven’t read to many plays but this really stands out to me because I’ve never read a play about characters in a play discussing what it means to be in a play. This just one of the things that makes this play great.
Another thing that is interesting about this play is explores concepts of existentialism through their journey. “Till events have played out. There’s a logic at work-it’s all done for you, don’t worry. Enjoy it. Relax To be taken in hand and led, like being a child again even without the innocence a child…” This is them taking a stab at if there is free will in the world. There’s no free will in the play because all their lines have already been written out so it raises the question is everything planned out in our world? What is free will? These are key questions that are not only raised in this play but also in the play it’s based on.
Another thing that is special about this play is that it is based on the classic play Hamlet, and makes you look at it a different way. Because Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have a whole adventure throughout their play while Hamlet is going on it makes you wonder what other characters in Hamlet might be doing while they are off screen. Could Polonius be planning a rise to power through connections with the king? “…if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else.” This quote is very important to the concept of this play because it makes you look at every exit in Hamlet as an entrance to a different story.
Hamlet by itself is a classic play and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a great play on it’s own to, but together they increase each other’s value as a play. When I first read Hamlet I didn’t pick up on the fact that there could be a world outside just the main story of the prince of Denmark’s struggles. And after reading Hamlet a second time and reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern right after I starting picking up on some relating concepts of existence.