Previous
Setting
Definition of Soliloquy
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself, relating his or her innermost thoughts and feelings as if... read full definition
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself, relating his or her innermost... read full definition
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself... read full definition
Soliloquy
Explanation and Analysis—Hamlet vs. Rosencrantz:
Through character foils, Stoppard positions Rosencrantz as a clumsy, modern counterpart to Hamlet. Rosencrantz is the standard against which Shakespeare’s Hamlet—the character notoriously wracked by indecision—seems almost brutally efficient by contrast. Stoppard’s version of Hamlet hardly has any original lines of his own, yet deftly navigates the play’s terrain.
What he lacks in dialogue he compensates for with decisiveness and action. While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern idly speculate about the nature of death and the wheels “set in motion,” Hamlet schemes, kills Polonius, and consults Fortinbras. Most crucially, he switches the letter while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sleep and singlehandedly alters the course of their fate. Hamlet—who organizes the dumbshow, outwits his childhood companions, and escapes from the ship—is in command for the entirety of the play. Rosencrantz is not.
The play nonetheless draws equivalences in the midst of this contrast. Like Hamlet, Rosencrantz contemplates extensively about death. Rosencrantz imagines death to be like “being alive in a box” in almost the same way that Hamlet famously likens the afterlife to an “undiscovered country.” Their intuition of mortality—the knowledge that “you don’t go on forever”—points to a deeper resemblance than a first read might suggest.
In an unlikely twist, Rosencrantz and Hamlet end up rivaling for the play’s attention. The work foregrounds Rosencrantz during Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy, shifting the limelight from literature’s classic tragic hero to the lesser known one. The play cuts a sharp, humorous contrast in the process. While Hamlet contemplates the burdens and uncertainties of mortal life, his childhood friend wonders whether to “accost him” or approach him “straight from the shoulder.” In dubbing Hamlet’s soliloquy over with Rosencrantz’s scrambled thoughts, Stoppard emphasizes the unexpected parallels between both characters and transfers a tortured, existential narrative from one set of hands to the other.
Related Themes:
