My Literature homework; In what ways has this play led you to think differently about life?
As humans, we often become encapsulated within our own lives and spend months at a time wandering around with goals which seem important to us and a direction in which we have created ourselves. Every so often, we are dangerously reminded of the insignificancy of our lives. I visualise my body on a street corner, as if in a film, the camera zooming out until I see our Earth, then our Sun, then our Universe, if I could be so naive to label it “our universe.”
I collapse into the overwhelming thoughts of how nothing I will ever do will change anything, and no one will remember me after 100 years.
Rosencrantz reminded me of “the only one direction, and time is its only measure.” Death is inevitable. It is a terrifying concept in which I suppress deeply in order to be classified as sane. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead forced me to think of the very thing I forced myself not to.
I often ponder the concept of immortality. If I am so afraid of death, why not just live forever? Rosencrantz extends my thoughts, “Life in a box is better than no life at all.” And yes, to me, it is. Life is much less frightening than death and I would prefer to live forever so I would never have to experience the realisation of being forgotten. Then, I remember that with death, there is no experience at all. In death, I will never think another thought to myself. So, I would rather be stuck in a box, just thinking to myself. And yes, I would be thinking “at least I’m not dead.”
Then, Rosencrantz informs me that “eternity is a terrible thought.” Because when I do think about it in depth (with much more depth than I would enjoy), there is nothing worse than being alive for all eternity. Considering the concept of immortality, as time passes, it would become evident that time meant nothing to me at all. The essence of life would indeed be sucked out of me because what makes life most precious, excusing cliché, is the short time in which we have to live. Inspiration whirls inside my body, and I begin to feel as if there is no time to waste. Then I begin to think about time. As I visualise a clock I realise that one day the hands will stop ticking for me, as if the batteries have died. However, it’s not batteries. It’s me who has died. It’s me who has ceased to exist.
As Guildenstern proclaims, “death is the absence of presence,” “an endless time of never coming back.” To me, death is a black hole, a dark emptiness that feels too enormous to even witness in my imagination. “Light goes with life,” along with your friends and family, your triumphs, your struggles, your pain and the distinct sound of your laughter. Death symbolises an endless period of insignificant memories that have been thrown away. Life becomes seemingly pointless if death is inevitable anyway.
The play did not lead me to think differently about life, instead Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead led me to the thoughts I’m trying to repress. The play reminds me of the pathetic mortality we all possess. However, there are ways in which we may escape such a chaotic world. I’m yet to discover all possibilities of happiness, but one aspect of life I’m very fond of is companionship. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are very much harmonized companions, even in their own fatal journey.
