Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Essay

Through different witty dialogues and actions, Shakespeare further solidifies the connection of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to a larger meta argument about the interpretation of his play. The first quote that evidences a link to the audience and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern comes directly after their reunion with Hamlet, where Hamlet asks why they’d come to such a prison to see him. When Guildenstern's asks “Prison, my lord?” Hamlet responds that “Denmark’s a prison” and Rosencrantz immediately quips that “the world is one” (2.2.261-263). Harkening back to his As You Like It line that “all the world’s a stage”, the Bard teases the audience to envision himself connected to Rosencrantz statement. If the world they live in is a stage, and the …show more content…
If the audience weren’t present, four entire acts of brooding would not have occurred as soliloquies revealing interiority wouldn’t have been necessary and Hamlet’s purpose of murdering Claudius would be immediately realized. Thus “the audience is in complicity with the tragic action. Does the convention of noninterference, the very role of audience and spectator in which we have been cast by the playwright, place [the audience] in complicity” with Rosencrantz’s execution of Claudius’s will to murder Hamlet and by extension The Bard (Gerber 80)? Through the use of vassal character’s, Shakespeare’s Hamlet answers with a resounding yes. Hamlet recognizes the presence of the audience themselves once Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are presumed dead, after Horatio asks “so Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't” and replies “Why, man, they did make love to this employment” (5.2.63-64). Hamlet, and Shakespeare, realize that the audience enjoys the play, enjoys the suffering of Hamlet, enjoys playing a role in the interpretation and very presentation of the