Hamlet’s attempt to get his uncle to claim his father’s murder is supposedly done for truth and redemption. However, Hamlet’s feigned “madness” (Hamlet, Act III, Scene III) makes it possible to believe that he may have alternative motives. For Hamlet, these motives may be out of resent which means it is possible he may have wanted his mother’s “husband’s brother” (Hamlet, Act III, Scene IV) to be hurt for selfish reasons- anger and hate for marrying his mother soon after his brother’s death.
This allowed him to make finding the truth his tool rather than making it necessary for restoration of himself emotionally and his father’s image. Stoppard, a playwright, needed a tragedy made up of characters that supposedly search for justice in order to illuminate an understanding of truth in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Specifically, Stoppard consciously uses Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, in order to unmask truth as an illusion.
Taking place in a vague setting in “a place without any visible character” (Rosencrantz, Act I), the play produces a slightly unrealistic setting and tone. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves is a place where natural laws of time are suspended and where just about anything can happen. One way they show this is by defying the laws of probability. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern flip coins, only to find that more than a hundred heads turn up repeatedly.
The irony applied there is that probability of “coins” (Rosencrantz, Act I) landing on a specific side is generally 50-50, something less than absolute as the scene makes the coins appear. However, by having that many heads turn up, it makes the illusion of absolute truth appear tangible. Even though “the run of heads is impossible” (Rosencrantz, Act I), Rosencrantz, initially, just accepts this as a fact just as Guildenstern does.
The Essay on Hamlet Act V Scene 2 The Climax
Hamlet: Act V-Scene 2 - The Climax In Act V-Scene 2, as the play begins with Hamlet fill in the detail of what happened to him since he left Denmark, Hamlet concedes that there was a kind of fighting in his heart. But clearly his inner struggle has been manifested from the time of his first appearance in this play. Now it is to hear no more expression of self-approach or doubts that he will act ...
Then when Guildenstern never questioned Rosencrantz’s answers when he flipped the coins, which always seemed to land on “heads” (Rosencrantz, Act I), his belief in the truth becomes almost impossible to trust. However, Guildenstern could not define truth which made his need for absolute certainty a delusion.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern feel as if they are struggling to discover a truth to their existence where they cannot truly find any. Not remembering anything that happened before the play began and without any previous experiences to rely upon, they are both physically and mentally lost, with nothing to help them find their way. Nothing is certain in their lives, not even their own identities, as others including themselves confuse their own names.
Through this, their lives parallel a game of questions in the sense that no answers are allowed and no answers are provided to aid them of their questions. Rosencrantz even sounds doubtful of truth when he remembers “there were answers to everything” (Rosencrantz, Act I) prior to the confrontations in Hamlet. The state of knowing all the answers is an unreachable goal sought by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Many aspects of the play help present an illusory effect in truth to make it appear as something it’s not. It’s almost as if, possibly, it does not exist at all. Stoppard seems to be saying that when one proves truth disappears, then meaning for life disappears as well. And if fact is all an illusion, then death, too, must be an illusion. “Death is not anything…It’s the absence of presence, nothing more” (Rosencantz, Act III), so if there is already the absence of truth, death means little. Something that does not really.
