Bryce Nations
             4/28/00
             Smith
             Lit112
            
            
            
            
             Crumbling Castle
            
             Hamlet is a complex play with many characters that each has an important role in the development of the story line. In the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are inserted for nothing more than comic relief. But on the contrary, in the movie they are hopeless wanderers looking for meaning in the world. The pair is so lost in their mental endeavors that they do not even notice the crumbling of a royal family and ultimately their own deaths.
             Through Rosencrantz and Guildenstern we learn many lessons of the laws of nature and mathematics. They find answers to some of the worlds most difficult problems that have not even begun to be discovered according to the history books. Such discoveries as Newton's law of gravity, the steam engine, and the theory of probability can all be solved in their own somewhat idiotic ways. They also argue and prove to each other the obvious puzzles in life. When trying to demonstrate the difference in which objects fall, Rosencrantz says, "You would think that the iron ball would fall at a faster
            
             Nations 2
            
             rate than this feather." Upon dropping the objects the iron ball plummets to the floor while the feather floats to the ground proving a common fact.
             There are significant differences between the movie and the book. In the book the real world is that of Elsinore to which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are brought into. The movie puts Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a make-believe world on a journey through the play of hamlet. In the movie the real world is represented by featureless rock and desolate forests, through which the pair journeys to find meaning. The only thing they can seem to remember is a royal summons given to them from the king of Denmark. Chance is a central image that is associated with the two throughout the film and was shown through the coin toss. The fact that the coin always landed upon ...