Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Shakespeare utilizes many symbols and motifs throughout Macbeth in order to fulfill a deeper meaning and understanding of the writing. Some motifs that are revealed in Macbeth are fair/foul, clothing, blood, gender role and sleep. Shakespeare also uses the weather to symbolize the tone and uses blood or the sound of knocking to symbolize guilt. The use of motif and symbols allows the audience to have an open interpretation about situations throughout the play. Shakespeare uses fair and foul at…

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two minor, characters in Hamlet, and friends of the young Hamlet from university in Germany. Their part in the story begins when they are summoned by King Claudius to spy and report on the “strange behavior” of the prince, and ends when they die in a counterplot set up by Hamlet himself. Their part in the play is brief and comical at best, and even their deaths are given no worthy development or climax, mentioned only at the end of the play. They play a…

corruption in Denmark, major characters in the play engage in espionage on each other to find out exactly what they are doing. The major act of espionage in the play, however, is Rosencratz and Guildenstern spying on Hamlet on the orders of King Claudius. When Hamlet first meets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He questions whether or not they have truly come to visit or if they were told to: Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you, and sure, Dear friends, my thanks…

Harold Pinter one of the most prominent and influential British playwright of the second half of the 20th century. His plays are distinguished from all other by their sense of suspense, mystification and ambiguity. Pinter has a specific technique to explore and elicit the mystery of human relationships. Pinter plays are characteristic of minimal plots and limited characters but the dialogues filled with powerful tension. He uses pauses, three dots and silence in his plays. They are the very…

Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, explores the effects of deception and trickery. Shakespeare’s characters are unaware the world they see is an illusion. Shakespeare sets the stage for a comedic adventure through Illyria starring conspiracy and intrigue. Niccolò Machiavelli, on the other hand, is attempting to shed light on how politics works in the world through The Prince. Machiavelli presents disturbing truths about the behavior of humanity, thus earning himself sinister notoriety.…

Queen Gertrude’s conversations with other characters throughout William Shakespeare’s Hamlet establish her as a complaisant and passive character. This is mainly demonstrated through the fact that the only time she speaks in the first two acts of the play is when she speaks either directly to Hamlet or to Claudius about how unnecessary it is to mourn King Hamlet’s death. In Act I scene II, she reprimands Hamlet for how upset he is about his father’s death when it is natural that “all that lives…

The narrative of Hamlet tells the story of a son seeking revenge for the murder of his father, the king of Denmark. Hamlet’s uncle poisoned the king, so he could control the kingdom, he betrayed Hamlet’s father just as Hamlet’s father betrayed the father of Fortinbras, the Norwegian prince. Several themes can be traced throughout the play. Two prominent themes include the constant reinforcing of male dominance, and the question of reality vs. unreality. Women are powerless within the play…

Another example that stands out to me is when Bohannan speaks of Hamlet seeing his fathers ghost. This cause a conflict with the Tiv who do not know what a ghost is. Once it is explained to them, it causes more conflict. When a person dies they are just dead and they can not come back to talk to someone or walk among the living or cast a shadow. Trying to bridge the language barrier she fumbled constantly to find words that the elders would understand. While Bohannan was attempting to tell the…

After this, Hamlet begins to demonstrate the traits of a schizophrenic, as he “talks beyond restraint except for periods of mute depression” in his never-ending soliloquies and monologues, and is “most often in a state of suspicion” (Aldus 5). Guildenstern even claims that when interrogating Hamlet, he was “niggard of question, but of our demands most free in his reply” (Shakespeare 3.1.1696-1697). The height of this suspicion is seen when Hamlet hastily kills Polonius, mistaking him for his…

Throughout Shakespeare's play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare uses imagery to paint out images in your mind. He uses the language to express what is happening in the play because they are very minimalistic. Since they have limited resources and props they are forced to show what happens through words. This play spotlights various examples of imagery to help the audience understand this historical tragedy. He uses words to show all of the crazy things Casca sees during the day, to show…