Postmodernism in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Abstract

Rasencrantz and Guiltlenstern are dead does not fo110w this track' It is true that Stoppard's play is based on Shakespeare's Hamlet but he completely rejects the classical theatrical ideas of the ending. The play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead ends in a very ambiguous way. Through this play Stoppard rejects the traditional way of ending; that is to say a complete ending. This play ends in a way that creates a 1ot of questions in the mind of the readers or audiences. We can say that this ending is not the final fuom Hamlet, butmost of it is written in colloquial prose(giving the effect of deflation)' This ptay is laden with rhetorical questions, repetition, witty repartee, biblical references and references to literatgre. By using colloquial language Stoppard makes his play cioser to the life of the common people and this can be an example of rejection Rosenerantz and Guildenstern's world everything is constituted for the time being, for the moment. They have no future and have no past, so for them the present is everything. Just like postmodern beings they only live for the present; nothing is permanent.