Instead, we find two highly actionable and yet passionless men. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Stoppard has fleshed out two men inevitably bound to their fates by the passions and wills of those around them, creating a compelling discussion on the balance between fate and free will. Stoppard develops twin personas through whom the passive complacency of man is examined, with basic impulses of self-preservation, concession to authority and a willingness to be moved by the desires of others ruling idle lives inexorably approaching deaths which will be overlooked by all. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Stoppard creates two tragic figures that reflect the philosophical idleness of the average man, using their baseness, incomprehension and apathy to offer a critique of society.

Introduced in one of their frequent, pointless games, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern immediately reveal themselves as internally contradictory figures. Clearly intended as comical figures in the spirit of Shakespeare's classic fools,...
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