Postmodernism literature features both irony and intertextuality that can make a play distinctive from others. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, it differentiates from other plays and how it was affected during this postmodern era. Dramatic irony refers to the audience knowing something that the characters do not, and intertextuality is including ideas from the famous Shakespearean play of Hamlet where the characters originate. In the play, the art of performance plays a vital role in remembering Hamlet and the change of perspective between these two plays. Having text within text helps it create this new form of literature that was starting to become popular during this era. Throughout the play, multiple occasions appear where these
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The characters are transported into the world of Shakespeare, which Ciugureanu states, “Stoppard creates for the two minor characters an imaginary world interwoven with the world of Shakespeare’s play” (147). We see how Stoppard has taken two minor characters from Shakespeare's play and has put them in a whole different setting, making them the main characters in his own play. By basing this play around Hamlet, the audience can have a better understanding on what the play is trying to portray by knowing the background of the story and characters from where they had originated. To be fully familiar with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead one must first be familiar with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is in Hamlet where we first meet these characters as minor characters and, specific scenes from Hamlet are actually performed and viewed from a different perspective in Stoppard's play. If the audience had not been familiar with these two works, they would have missed the references and therefore would read the play as something other than what it was intended to or misunderstand the similarities these plays shared other than just having similar characters. This understanding of the text in Hamlet, gives deeper meaning to the pretext of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. In the article Freeman states “In a more important sense, Shakespeare's play provides Stoppard a larger
The characters are transported into the world of Shakespeare, which Ciugureanu states, “Stoppard creates for the two minor characters an imaginary world interwoven with the world of Shakespeare’s play” (147). We see how Stoppard has taken two minor characters from Shakespeare's play and has put them in a whole different setting, making them the main characters in his own play. By basing this play around Hamlet, the audience can have a better understanding on what the play is trying to portray by knowing the background of the story and characters from where they had originated. To be fully familiar with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead one must first be familiar with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is in Hamlet where we first meet these characters as minor characters and, specific scenes from Hamlet are actually performed and viewed from a different perspective in Stoppard's play. If the audience had not been familiar with these two works, they would have missed the references and therefore would read the play as something other than what it was intended to or misunderstand the similarities these plays shared other than just having similar characters. This understanding of the text in Hamlet, gives deeper meaning to the pretext of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. In the article Freeman states “In a more important sense, Shakespeare's play provides Stoppard a larger