preview

Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Role In Hamlet

Decent Essays

“To be or not to be – that is the question…” (III, I, 56-) so starts Hamlet’s most famous and well-known soliloquy. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, written in the very late 1500’s, the audience is introduced to two “comical” characters at the beginning of the play; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. These two characters, clearly, had no clue of what is going on throughout the play; in addition, they followed orders without questioning them. Therefore, their role in the play was not clear. Ultimately, their role in the play was to support, as well as spy, on Hamlet, hence them taking orders from greater characters like Claudius. However, the comic duo serves a deeper purpose than just assisting their old childhood friend. Arguably, their role in the play is also to forecast ideas, bring out character traits to help readers understand them more, and come up with solutions to some of the questions that the play has left the readers to deal with. They are capable of accomplishing that due to their disloyal behaviors towards other characters.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were not loyal towards Hamlet; they’ve agreed to spy on him and get paid for doing so. Their disloyalty then shows the audience they are a supply of …show more content…

The comic duo gave readers the opportunity to come up with new approaches on piecing together the plot. They helped us recognize that Hamlet could have been bad at making friends and is lonely on the inside. Furthermore, they provided a piece of evidence to argue with on Hamlet’s insanity. Lastly, the prince compared Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to a sponge, and although it might not seem important, it was a great foreshadow for their fate. Throughout the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have served a bigger purpose to the audience and not much of a purpose to other

Get Access