Are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern really dead? : about the subjectivity in Tom Stoppard’s "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" and its film adaptation

Abstract

The paper focuses on the question of subjectivity in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead - absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard and its film adaptation. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are confused by the events of Hamlet and seem unaware of their role in the larger drama; they are very similar, sometimes treated by another characters like a one person, and they don’t know even their own names. To analyse these characters and their meaning, the author of the paper uses elements of theoretical concepts by Roger Brubacker, Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida