Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Packet

Act I 

1. What do you think is the significance about the coin toss coming up heads so often?  Consider what existentialists might say about issues like laws of nature and probability.  What themes are suggested about man’s control?

2. Guildenstern asserts, “The scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defense against the pure emotion of fear.” Do you agree?  What is there to be afraid of?  Does literature (R & G are Dead, Hamlet) have an advantage over science and philosophy in the examination of human phenomena? 

3. What does R & G’s confusion over their own identity suggest about the significance of identity?  How deeply rooted in one’s self is identity? 

4. The player declares,” ….we grow rusty…by this time tomorrow we might have forgotten everything we ever knew…We’d be back where we started – improvising.”  What implication does this comment have for this play’s examination of the nature of the human condition?

5. Why are there so many games about questions?  What is the difference between a life that has many questions unanswered and a life where all questions have answers?

6. Comment on the following lines:

      Player: “We have no control” (25).

      Guildenstern:  “Give us this day our daily mask” (39). 

      Guildenstern:  “The only beginning is birth and the only end is death – if you

                          can’t count on that, what can you count on?” (39).

Guildenstern:  “There’s a logic at work – it’s all done for you, don’t worry” (40).

Guildenstern:  “Words, words.  They’re all we have to go on” (41).

Ros:  Is there a choice?    Guil:  Is there a God?  Ros:  Foul!  No non sequiturs…” (43).

7.  Structurally, why do you think Act One ends when it does?

Act Two

1.      Act II begins with the continuation of the scene from Hamlet.  What roles have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern assumed in Shakespeare’s play by the time of this scene?  What problems are they having with this role in Stoppard’s play?  Are their characters different in the two plays?

2.      How many questions did Hamlet ask?  How many answers did he give?  How does this relate to Shakespeare’s Hamlet? 

3.      When the Player rejoins them, Ros and Guil are concerned about their loss of words, while the Player is concerned about his loss of an audience.  How do these losses undermine their sense of identity?

4.      They advocate trust (67), but what is it they trust?  What attitudes have they revealed toward language, questions, madness, passions, reasons?

5.      What are their attitudes toward eternity?  (70-72)

6.      Guildenstern asks a question that critics have often asked about in Hamlet:  “What is the dumbshow for?”  What is the player’s answer?  What do you make of it?

7.      Look at the Player’s statement of aesthetic values:  “There’s a design at work in all art – surely you know that?  Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral, and logical conclusions.”  Does this play seem to be moving toward these conclusions?  What problems of identity and meaning in life are suggested about playacting, death in playacting, and the intersection of this play with Hamlet? 

8.      As Act II comes to an end, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are aware of change, a change  in circumstances and a change of the seasons.  What is suggested by the autumn leaves and cold weather?

9.      Comment on the following lines:

Player:  “Do you call that an ending?  -- with practically everyone on his feet?  My goodness no – over your dead body”(79).  

Guil:  “Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are…condemned.  Each move is dictated by the previous one – that is the meaning of order” (60). 

            Player:  “Uncertainty is the normal state” (66). 

Guil:  “But we don’t know what’s going on, or what to do with ourselves.  We don’t know how to act.” 

Player:  We follow directions – there is no choice involved.” (80) 

Guil:  “… if we can’t learn by experience, what else have we got?” (90) 

10.  Structurally, why do you think that Act Two ends how and when it does? 

Act Three 

1. What might be symbolized by the dark and the sea journey that opens Act III?

2. Why is life on a boat comforting Guildenstern?  Are they “free” because they are on the boat?

3. What evidence is there of their lack of direction?  How are they “slipping of the map?” 

4. Note differences in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s response to the letter mandating Hamlet should be killed.  How do both deal with the dilemma of the imminent death of one of their friends?  How do they rationalize their “betrayal?”  What are Guildenstern’s arguments for obeying orders and not defending Hamlet?

5. What is R & G’s response to Hamlet’s disappearance?  Does their response seem existential?

6. Without Hamlet, R & G are more adrift and purposeless than ever.  They open the letter and see their own execution order.  One critic said, “Stoppard’s decision to have R & G see their execution order and dumbly accept it makes them fools.”  Do you agree?  Why do they accept their fate?  Do they have a choice?  Are there more options than they had as characters in Hamlet?

7. Why do the players appear on the boat?  How does the player attempt to demonstrate that art has greater reality than life?  What does his “death” suggest about accepting appearances for truth?

8. Death is accompanied by darkness and cold.  How is death defined by Guildenstern?  Is it true that “There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said – no”?

9. Discuss the similarities and differences in the themes of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Stoppard’s play.  What is his purpose in alluding to a past work of literature?

10. Comment on the ending given by Horatio.

11. Comment on the following quotes:

Guil:  “Give us this day our daily cue” (102).

Ros:  “We don’t question, we don’t doubt  We perform” (108).

Guil:  “You’ve only got their word for it   Ros:  But that’s what we depend on” (110).

Player:  “Life is a gamble, at terrible odds – if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it” (115).

Guil:  “We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind and current” (122).

      Player:  “In our experience, most things end in death” (123).