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Question: What was the point of the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet!?
Were they really bad people, as Hamlet deduced!?

I just recently re-read the play and they strike as sort of naive fellows!. Claudius just convinced them to watch Hamlet because he went "mad"!.

Is there a significance to Hamlet plotting their deaths!? For example, that Hamlet was becoming as cruel and conniving as his uncle!? (killing people that represented threat)Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
A general theme of the play is "to thine ownself be true!." R & G had failed to be true to themselves because they volunteered to be spokes to the king's wheel, "their defeat does by their own insinuation grow!." They were spies who lived "in the MIDDLE"!.!.!.In the secret parts of FORTUNE!." Thus they ended up as deliverers of their own death warrant!.

When he changed the letter, Hamlet was not anticipating that he would escape from R & G (via being captured by pirates) before they reached England!. Thus, in self-defense he modified the letter to cause the de-capitation of R & G before they could have a chance to persuade the English king that Claudius really intended for him to kill Hamlet!.

On the other hand, Hamlet was too callous about their deaths!. Hamlet had a split personality!. When he was not "from himself taken away," he was the gentle scholar from Wittenberg!. But when the "book and volume of his brain" was usurped by his father's ghost, he was the war-loving Prince Hamlet, who applauded sending 20,000 men to their deaths "for a straw!." As Horatio said (perhaps referring to Hamlet's ghastly king-like behavior as well as to Claudius' perfidy), "What a king is this!"!.

And you're right, he was like his conniving uncle as well as like his warmongering father!. Right after writing his father in the "book and volume of his brain," he wrote his uncle in his "tablets!."

- Ray Eston Smith JrWww@QuestionHome@Com

They seem like innocents to me, as well!. But in his increasing madness and self absorption, Hamlet strikes out at several people who are innocent, (or at least innocent of what he accused them of), most notably Ophelia!. His unnecessary cruelty to her certainly makes it seem like his previously noble personality is gone beyond redemption!.

Playwright Tom Stoppard obviously thought R&G didn't deserve their fates either, so gave them more stage time in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead!. Www@QuestionHome@Com