Charles University in Prague
Faculty of Education
MASTER’S THESIS
2014
ŠtěpánBraňka
Charles University of Prague
Faculty of Education
Department of the English Language and Literature
Tom Stoppard – an inventory of his postmodern
and near-postmodern literary devices
Author: ŠtěpánBraňka (AJ-ZSV)
Supervisor: Jakub Ţeníšek
2014
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Jakub Ţeníšek and I would
like to thank him for his dedicated help and support throughout the writing of this thesis.
I hereby declare that this thesis is my work only and all the sources that were used
are listed on the Works Cited page. No other sources were used.
Prague 2014
ŠtěpánBraňka
Abstract:
This Master‟s thesis is dedicated to the analysis of Tom Stoppard‟s plays. It
analyses their main themes, protagonists and modern and postmodern literary devices
that Stoppard used when creating his plays. The theoretical part briefly introduces
postmodernism and some of its major characteristics. It further focuses on the theatre of
the absurd. In the practical part, Tom Stoppard‟s plays are then analysed from different
angles. The major areas constitute mainly Stoppard‟s modern and postmodern literary
devices, the themes of his plays and their division. The part of this thesis dedicated to
themes also discusses the characters of the plays.
Key Words: Stoppard, postmodernism, theatre of the absurd, plays
Abstrakt:
Tato diplomová práce se zabývá analýzou divadelních her Toma Stopparda.
Zaměřuje se na jejich témata, postavy a moderní a postmoderní literární techniky, které
Stoppard při psaní jeho her vyuţíval. Teoretická část krátce uvádí pojem
postmodernismus a některé jeho základní charakteristiky. Dále se zabývá absurdním
dramatem. Praktická část analyzuje Stoppardovy hry z různých úhlu pohledu. Hlavní
oblasti činily Stoppardovymoderní postmoderní tvůrčí techniky, témata jeho her a jejich
rozdělení. Tato část týkající se téma také rozebírá postavy těchto her.
Klíčováslova: Stoppard, postmodernismus, absurdní drama, hry
Content
I. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 6
1.
Theoretical Background ........................................................................................... 9
1.1.
Postmodernism and its influence on the theatre of the 20th century............................. 9
1.1.1.
Themes and Techniques ................................................................................................ 10
1.1.2.
Metafiction .................................................................................................................... 11
1.1.3.
Intertextuality in postmodernism ................................................................................. 13
1.1.4.
Other postmodern techniques used in theatre ............................................................ 14
1.1.5.
Theatre of the absurd .................................................................................................... 15
1.1.6.
Themes in the theatre of the absurd ............................................................................ 17
1.1.7.
Is Stoppard a proper absurdist playwright? .................................................................. 19
1.1.8.
The author - Tom Stoppard ........................................................................................... 21
2.
Practical Part .......................................................................................................... 22
2.1.
Modern and postmodern literary devices in Stoppard’s plays ..................................... 22
2.1.1.
Stoppard’s play with time and space ............................................................................ 25
2.1.2.
Temporal techniques ..................................................................................................... 25
2.1.3.
Spatial techniques ......................................................................................................... 29
2.1.4.
Play within a play ........................................................................................................... 30
2.1.5.
Plays about agents as an offshoot of Stoppard’s plays within plays ............................. 34
2.1.6.
Unreliable narrators ...................................................................................................... 35
2.2.
Themes and characters of selected Tom Stoppard’s plays ........................................... 37
2.2.1.
Towards realism – dealing with the politics .................................................................. 37
2.2.2.
Plays based on metafiction and intertextuality............................................................. 44
2.2.3.
Plays about art and artists ............................................................................................. 50
2.2.4.
A play about philosophers and their search for purpose .............................................. 53
2.2.5.
Plays that focus on how the world works ..................................................................... 56
2.2.6.
Ordinary characters in extraordinary situations ........................................................... 59
3.
Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 63
4.
Works Cited ........................................................................................................... 65
I. Introduction
Tom Stoppard is one of the major playwrights of the British drama of the 20th
century. His plays provide their readers and audience with a rich tapestry of absolutely
unique (or at least relatively original) characters and innovative approaches to the art of
philosophical comedy and farce. Many literary critics have been using the word
„Stoppardian‟ (William M. Demastes in his book Cambridge Introduction to Tom
Stoppard (2013) even introduces the term „Stoppardianism‟) to describe features of
theatre which comprise his original and incomparable style of writing, his comedy and
his truly unusual characters. This well-deserved attribute has become a renowned
feature in the drama world resulting from Stoppard‟s ingenious and unconventional
writing and the atmosphere he endows his plays with.
Many would agree that in the world of Tom Stoppard‟s plays we can find almost
everything we could find in a literary work, including intertextual references, political
satire, absurd dialogues, existentialism, love, murder stories, metafiction and, in a
decidedly lay terminology, probably anything a literary critic or keen theatregoer would
care to look for in a play. On the other hand, in Stoppard‟s world we may also find it
very problematic to distinguish anything from the above with absolute certainty because
the major denominator of Stoppard‟s plays is ambiguity.
Ambiguity is what entertains the audience throughout the whole play and at the
same time it torments all the critics endeavouring to analyse and decipher meanings of
any of Stoppard‟s plays. While such scrutiny may prove useful when analysing works
from the realistic realm of theatre, it simply cannot be the case with Stoppard. No matter
how many facts we can state about individual plays with absolute certainty, the presence
of the overwhelming feeling of ambiguity and uncertainty will always prevail in
Stoppard‟s plays. Eventually, the audience is left entertained and enlightened, yet
almost mysteriously baffled as to whether what they have just witnessed what has been
the purest and deepest form of art or a mere illusion of a play. Stoppard makes us
wonder and contemplate and at the same time he makes us despair while we try to make
any meaning out of the play. The simple conclusive denouement where good defeats
evil, love wins and heroes tragically die is just not provided. Instead, the prevalent
confusion of the characters transcends from within the play and entangles the audience.
Stoppard‟s plays intrigue us with their original plots based on almost anything that
can go through one‟s mind. Whether it is a play about a psychotic triangle player or a
triple agent, whether the setting is a bridge with its painters or a villa sharing two
timelines, the audience will always be fascinated by Stoppard‟s craftsmanship. There is
no doubt that even the simplest of ideas such as the idea for a play about a triangle
player from Stoppard‟s play Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1978) may
consequently create a basis for the finest of works of art.
While the number of different plots and storylines is incredible in itself, the
variety of themes found in Stoppard‟s plays is utterly astonishing. Stoppard and his
characters discuss matters of art and its usefulness for life, philosophy, love and
relationships, the moral difficulties of double or triple agents, views on life of
Elizabethan characters, politics, sexual harassment and so on. The list could definitely
continue for many more pages. The scope of the plays is overwhelmingly difficult to
contain within a singlecritical assessment. Nonetheless, there have already been many
publications dealing with Stoppard and his work from numerous angles and
perspectives from which some of them served as useful sources for this thesis. With so
many great resources upon such a renowned author already having been published, this
thesis will strive to analyse Stoppard‟s work from a different angle.
Just likeStoppard‟s most renowned and critically acclaimed characters,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, or maybe just Guildenstern, are determined to delve into
Hamlet‟s mind to unravel his secrets and the true basis of his mysterious behaviour, this
thesis shall delve in a very similar way into minds of various Stoppard‟s characters and
identify patterns of their behaviour. Frequently, however, it is not just the behaviour that
causes stir within Stoppard‟s play, but it is the sense of something always being out of
place when it comes to the characters. This thesis shall analyse how exactly Stoppard
employs his characters into his play while he achieves that great comic effect resulting
from the absurdity of the characters. It is the use of absurdity, which brings Tristan
Tzara, Lenin and James Joyce into a dialogue over a wedding or a mystery play
audience‟s members into the midst of a murder. Elsewhere Elizabethan figures are lead
to their untimely and confused deaths while discussing the meaning of life and we may
also witness a deep life philosophy of a bridge painter.
When discussing the characters, the background of a play can be by no means
neglected. Nor can we ignore typical Stoppardian ways of tailoring a play based on
postmodern approaches. For the purposes of this thesis these will nevertheless remain in
the scope of the peripheral. Along with the focus on the themes of the plays that are so
closely connected to the usage of characters, this thesis will hopefully provide a certain
insight into the ways how Stoppard frequently chooses to team upseemingly
incompatible characters, and their bizarre juxtapositionscan be seen as a crucial
ingredient which generates the Stoppardian effect of humour and comedy. The practical
part of this thesis will therefore be more or less strictly focused on the characters of
Stoppard‟s plays and the themes used.
Before we shift the focus to the practical part, however, the themes discussed
should be briefly introduced in context. This context consists mainly of a short
introduction to postmodernism which is arguably one of the prevalent tendencies in
literature and theatre of the 20th century and which is (as this thesis also argues) an
important contributory element in Stoppard‟s plays. The scope of our analysis shall
mainly refer to intertextuality and metafiction as the writerly techniqueswhich account
for a considerable part of Stoppard‟s work and are in line with the postmodern approach
to literature and theatre.
Another topic discussed shall present the theatre of the absurd and of course, last
but not least, the background of Tom Stoppard‟s plays and his life, since a considerable
amount of inspiration for his plays has been drawn from his experience. It is by no
means a purpose of this thesis to provide an elaborate biography of Tom Stoppard but
an abbreviated insight on his life may help to unravel a little bit about his plays and
characters as well.
1. Theoretical Background
1.1. Postmodernism and its influence on the theatre of the
20th century
Postmodernism is a term that remains rather vague and malleablein its entirety, as
it allows numerous definitions and interpretations, some of which may even be seen as
ambiguous or even contradictory. However, it can be said that it contains a general
attitude that began to be felt throughout the world,and especially the artistic world, in
the second half of the 20th century. That is not to say that its roots cannot be found much
earlier yet the term along with the general artistic tendencies has been flourishing most
since the second half of the 20th century. The movement results from the cultural
background of a society that is very different from the societies of the preceding
centuries. As a major contemporary theorists Linda Hutcheon claims, “I would agree
and, in fact, argue that the increasing uniformization of mass culture is one of the
totalizing
influencesthat
postmodernism
exists
to
challenge”
(Hutcheon
6).
Postmodernism seeks new paths and questions the traditional values and approaches. It
thrives on paradox and contradiction and thus loosens the shackles and boundaries of
the straightforward and linear mass culture.
Even though we may speak of postmodernism when we relate to art, linguistics,
psychoanalysis, to a wide range of works of art such as film, architecture, paintings and
so on, this thesis shall nevertheless focus on the literary aspect of postmodernism. The
term is so broad that an elaborate overall insight would simply prove to be futile.
Postmodernism in literature challenges the traditional narrative techniques and provides
an overall feeling of uncertainty. It destroys all limits and cultivates innovative styles of
writing. The authors do not restrict themselves by traditions; the source of inspiration is
unlimited and so is their creativity.
1.1.1. Themes and Techniques
It has been mentioned that postmodernism challenges the traditional narrative
techniques and traditional institutions. It also violates the overall distinctions and
taxonomies of literary genres. Hutcheon provides an example on how traditional
omniscience and also the omnipresence of the third person are often neglected. The
dialogue may thus become intentionally misleading and serve various purposes.
Sometimes the monologue of the storyteller will later prove to be just a dream or in fact
it may have been somebody else uttered the words. A character may also shift his
perspective multiple times during a play or a novel and in fact be living multiple lives.
The narrators are frequently unreliable. There are simply no boundaries to the narrative
techniques and that is what makes the postmodern works so intriguing.
Another occurrence frequently notable within the postmodern works is the overlap
between fiction and non-fiction. A fictional event may be claimed to have actually
happened and in the similar manner non-fiction may be falsified. Postmodern writers
often borrow a real person and present his or her life in a way that suggests that we are
presented with biographical events from his or her life. Typically we even obtain the
information seemingly from the person‟s own testimony. Only later do we usually learn
that whatever we just witnessed was a mere fabulation. Invoking a Polish-American
writer (and her fellow theorist) Jerzy Kosinski, Linda Hutcheon purposefully blurs the
boundary between documentary and fictive genres by drawing attention to the fact that
“Kosinski calls this postmodern form of writing “autofiction”: “fiction” because all
memory is fictionalizing; “auto” because it is, for him, “a literary genre, generous
enough to let the author adopt the nature of his fictional protagonist – not the other way
around” (Hutcheon 10).
1.1.2. Metafiction
The phenomenon of autofiction is very close to yet another term that is usually
spoken about in context with postmodernism and this term is metafiction. Metafiction is
probably the most common feature throughout the postmodern literary works and it is
inherent to most of them. Metafiction, being a postmodern concept, also challenges a
conventionalised literary point of view. Just by adding the prefix meta- we may observe
what metafiction seeks to contest. Metafiction, however, somehow not only challenges
fiction but also seems to defy the customary standards of non-fiction. There is a very
strong connection between metafiction, history, and non-fiction. Hutcheon observes that
she has come to see postmodernism as “a contradictory cultural enterprise, one that is
heavily implicated in that which it seeks to contest. It uses and abuses the very
structures and values it takes to task.” Viewed through this general prism, she further
arguesthat one of the most elaborate Postmodern offshoots, historiographic metafiction,
“keeps distinct its formal auto-representation and its historical context, and in so doing
problematizes the very possibility of historical knowledge, because there is no
reconciliation, no dialectic here - just unresolved contradiction” (Hutcheon 106).
We may thus come to a conclusion in which we realize that no matter how
precisely and correctly all the historical events are described in a novel or in a play, one
may never be certain whether or not they in fact really happened or if they were just
mere fabulations devised by a character or the author (in terms of a postmodern novel or
a play the thoughts and storytelling perspectives of the author and his characters
frequently overlap and intertwine). Hutcheon also mentions Aristotle and his concept of
history and fiction. “To Aristotle, the historian could speak only of what has happened,
of the particulars of the past, the poet, on the other hand, spoke of what could or might
happen and so could deal more with universals” (Hutcheon 106). She further stresses
that this does not imply that historical events could not become an important part of a
piece of art, yet, in the realm of traditional fiction, the historical events are presented
more or less in the way they had actually happened. A postmodern author seeks to
challenge this concept.
A particular historical event may consequently be presented in its authentic
circumstances, yet the author may choose to re-establish the situations in his or her own
way and perhaps choose an alternative ending or simply a different and unconventional
point of view, other than a historian would provide. Every historical possibility may
thus be explored and twisted, and an unexpected and fictional solution may replace the
non-fictional fact. The present meets the past and the two often contradict each other.
The facts are nothing but tools used to whatever purposes the author desires.
The postmodern usage of historical characters works in a similar way. The
characters may obtain a completely new life with a novel or a play. Their life may alter
in a considerable manner and they may or may not find themselves in their original era
and time. In many cases, they will be thrown into a different time and space and thus
create a comic effect. Typically, they maintain their historical character idiosyncrasies
that however feel a little out of place considering their new environment. On the other
hand, the historical personages may become eccentric and assume new personalities
solely based on the author‟s desire. Their life may thus become completely falsified
perhaps so as to illustrate the unreliability of historical sources. We may find this
feature in many absurdist novels. Examples may be Doctor Copernicus (in the novel of
that name), Houdini (in Ragtime), Richard Nixon (in The Public Burning) (all listed in
Hutcheon 114). Also, they are to be found in numerous plays, such as Tristan Tzara,
James Joyce and Lenin in Stoppard‟s Travesties. These characters also possess many
peculiarities which they may have had even as real people, yet the chances are that
probably they did not. However, it is a postmodern author‟s task to enrich the characters
in any way he or she wishes, thus achieving a desired comic effect.
It may then be observed that literary heroes and protagonists of postmodernism
are rarely what we would assume normal. They are typically very peculiar and odd.
They often find themselves in situations where their environment is having great
difficulties understanding them and vice versa. This is especially relevant when it comes
to the drama of the absurd, which shall be later analysed as an offshoot of
postmodernism and historical metafiction. We have been witnesses to the failure of
communication when listening to the dialogues between Beckett‟s Estragon and
Vladimir, we have seen the journey of misunderstanding of Stoppard‟s most iconical
characters Rosencrantz and Guilderstern, be that a failure of an inventor in Stoppard‟s
Enter a Free Man or a misunderstood daughter Sylvia who wants to become an ape in
N.F. Simpsons‟sOne Way Pendulum, these protagonists never seem to achieve what
their peculiar desires command them to. They seem to be alienated from this world. And
neither do they get accepted to it nor are they able to accept the real world they are
living in.
1.1.3. Intertextuality in postmodernism
Intertextuality is a phenomenon broadly used in literature and theatre and it is very
closely connected to metafiction. While metafiction works with historical events and
real personas that are altered in any way an author desires, intertextuality typically
refers to other literary sources. An author who decides to integrate events of characters
from these sources is said to be using intertextuality. In retrospect, it has to be admitted
that this has never been an uncommon method. Thousands of writers have used
references to other major works of art and thus numerous fictional characters speak
about or refer to other fictional characters and events from different novels, plays and so
on. The works of Shakespeare, their characters and their lines have been quoted so
many times that the list of intertextual allusionscould hardly be contained within a
reasonable format.
Yet, there is a significant difference between the common and omnipresent
intertextuality in the realm of realistic works and what intertextuality stands for within
the context of postmodernism. It has been made clear that while using intertextuality, an
author may borrow a character from another or let us say a different book. In a realistic
novel or a play, the character will remain more or less untouched and will serve a
similar role as he did in the original work. If he comes into an actual interaction (he is
not only spoken about but also becomes active and participates in the events), the
overall sense of the original character is maintained. This is the realistic approach.
In the postmodern approach, a literary character (or an event) is usually removed
from his original environment. He may or may not assume an altered new personality
and opinions. He may time travel, find himself in an adventure that he, as the original
character, never really underwent. Yet, while some of the characters may become
completely different (perhaps only by the significance that they may gain or lose), some
of the characters may remain relatively stable and unchanged by the adaption. Yet, they
will always appear in new environments and interact with other characters according to
the mind of the author that adapted them.
An example of this play with borrowed characters will be examined in greater
detail in the practical part, for instance when discussing the characters of Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern and Hamlet. An important distinction of these characters is that they in
a sense become real. That is not to say that they are real per se, however, they interact
with the other characters in a play or a novel as if they were real. If we speak about
these characters within a realistic work, the other characters are usually aware of the
fact that they refer to a fictional character. In the postmodern realm, these fictional
characters become real and are put on the same level as the other characters as they
come into interaction with them. According to this principle, Will Self‟s Dorian (from
the novel of the same name) becomes a real 20th century character and is treated as such
within the novel, even though the template for the character is obviously fictional.
Intertextuality serves a similar purpose as metafiction does. It casts a completely
new light on people and on events. Needless to say that they frequently become altered
considerably and they may undergo substantial changes. In line with the postmodern
approach, this shows contradiction and attributes to the sense of unreliability of literary
and historical sources. Thus presented, both the literary and historiographic sources may
become mere alternatives. When handled by postmodern authors, no assumption is safe
any longer. The reality is questioned and we find out that the reality is now almost
invariably revealed to be only a product of the author‟s mind. A parallel to this
assumption may be found in the notion that all history is written by the winners.
Therefore we may assume that history may have always been altered and forged. That is
not to say that it has always been done so in the Orwellian sense, yet it is a fact that
throughout the history, the sources may be only as objective as their author is. And just
like our evidence lies within the books and other similar sources, the very same
evidence is thoroughly deconstructed by postmodern works. Reading a postmodern
novel or a play makes us question the very foundations of this world and that is exactly
what the authors strive for.
1.1.4. Other postmodern techniques used in theatre
One of the major features of postmodernism is arguably the number of innovative
approaches to the narrative techniques. All the traditional methods are constantly being
challenged and disrupted by the authors. Nearly every play tends to be singular as to
what innovative approach we may distinguish in it. We no longer witness the realistic
linear sequence of events. Instead, we encounter temporal jumps, a stage that can be
split into multiple locations and time eras, scenes that seem real yet they are only mere
dreams, plays within plays, characters who are split into two or more people or simply
have split personalities, unreliable narrators also appear on numerous occasions.
Tom Stoppard is renowned for using these innovative techniques and while he
probably gained the majority of his fame by writing plays in the realm close to the
theatre of the absurd, he also wrote a considerable number of what we can call semi
realistic plays that do have a plot and an actual storyline. Nevertheless, all these plays
cannot be considered to be strictly realistic as some of these postmodern techniques
mentioned above are always used to make the play innovative and unique.
1.1.5. Theatre of the absurd
There is no doubt that even though not all of Stoppard‟s plays are exclusively
absurd per se, Tom Stoppard nevertheless is one of the major representatives of the
theatre of the absurd, that of the post-Beckettian era. The theatre of the absurd has been
flourishing since the second half of the 20th century and due to its many similar features
it may be considered a branch of the superior term – postmodernism and postmodern
theatre.
But first let us have a closer look on its roots and basic features. When speaking of
the theatre of the absurd, the name that pops into our minds is Samuel Beckett. He was
the pioneer of the theatre of the absurd and his crucial play Waiting for Godot(1953)and
its characters have become a synonym for delusion, communication failures, and void of
an absurdity.
It is important to stress, as Martin Esslin mentions, that the dramatists who are
loosely grouped under the rubric of absurd drama “do not form part of any selfproclaimed or self-conscious school or movement. On the contrary, each of the writers
in question is an individual who regards himself as a lone outsider, cut off and isolated
in his private world” (Esslin 22). This general notion is also important because it often
transfers to the absurd characters who often find themselves alienated from the real
world in a very similar fashion.
This seemingly rather blank statement is very crucial to the concept of the theatre
of the absurd as such and quite remarkably, it is largely valid for postmodernism as
well. While the modernist beginning of the 20th century was overwhelmed with novelty
approaches and revolutionary causeways that paved ways to novelty forms of art, most
of them were in fact largely bound by the omnipresent sense of belonging somewhere.
There was a clear distinction where the mass culture was and then there were modernist
approached that opposed it. That is no longer case in the second half of the 20th century.
The clear distinction does not exist and the artists feel no longer bound by any artistic
movement. The individualism flourishes and so does the deconstruction and
deconventionalism. The art becomes full of contradictions and it often fails (sometimes
intentionally) to convey any clear meaning.
The term absurd is most commonly referred to as having been taken from Albert
Camus‟ Myth of Sisyphus (1943) where the author comes to a conclusion that life is
without a sense of purpose and thus becomes absurd. Martin Esslin paraphrases this
existential mindset as a blend of general anxiety and cultural deracination generated by
the fact that “[a] world that can be explained by reasoning, however faulty, is a familiar
world. But in a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a
stranger. His is an irremediable exile, because he is deprived of memories of a lost
homeland as much as he lacks the hope of a promised land to come. This divorce
between a man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of
Absurdity”(Esslin 23).On the same page, Esslin further distinguishes the major aspects
of the theatre of the absurd: “„Absurd‟ originally means „out of harmony‟ in a musical
context. Hence its dictionary definition: „out of harmony with reason of propriety;
incongruous, unreasonable, illogical‟. In common usage, „absurd‟ may simply mean
„ridiculous‟ (Esslin 23)”. We may observe that this definition does not exactly fit the
definition so Esslin then stresses a more adequate definition by Eugene Ionesco who
claimed that absurd refers to a state of mind which is devoid of purpose.
Being devoid of purpose is probably the key universal idiosyncrasy of most
characters in the theatre of the absurd. This sense of being lost in the world they are
living in is common to the characters of these play, be that characters of Beckett,
Ionesco, Pinter or Stoppard. They rarely seem to be able to communicate their thoughts
and all their attempts to do so usually fail. Absurd dramatists rarely put an effort into
saving the characters by giving them a purpose. They do not seek to change the world or
make it better. They just show how absurd, complicated and contradictory it may be.
Stoppard himself claimed that if somebody wants to change the world, the least
effective thing he or she can do is to write a play about it. That is one of the reasons
why the audience typically leaves the theatre perplexed as to what the meaning of the
play actually was. And quite frequently the perplexity is the final goal and there is
nothing more to find.
Since the theatre of the absurd is not usually concerned with social problems, the
focus shifts elsewhere. The characters find themselves in fantastic and often unreal
situations in which the characters struggle with their place in the world. There is no real
description of a character‟s adventure nor is there a moral dilemma which is resolved.
The situation is simply happening and the character is left helpless. Esslin illustrates the
previous on an example: “things happen in Waiting for Godot, but these happenings do
not constitute a plot or story; they are an image of Beckett‟s intuition that nothing really
every happens in man‟s existence” (Esslin 393). Plot-wise, nothing really happens in
most absurdist plays. Even though the characters might be on a journey just like
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they nevertheless do not seem to be moving anywhere.
The plot is there, yet it seems very peripheral and plot-less at the same time. There is no
real development from the epic point of view and there is usually no clear-cut
conclusion either. The absurdity of the characters‟ lives is ever-present throughout the
whole play and lingers even after that, in the minds of the audience.
1.1.6. Themes in the theatre of the absurd
Analysing the themes of the theatre of the absurd is a difficult task due to their
considerable ambiguity yet we may endeavour to show at least some common features.
From the characters‟ point of view, their motivation has been briefly analysed in the
previous subchapter. It has also been mentioned that the absurdist plays usually lack
plots. That is to say, plots from the traditional point of view. So what typical situations
can we find in absurdist plays? The answer is probably almost impossible. As we
concluded that the plays are usually plot-less, the themes and situations are virtually
unlimited. They emanate solely from the author‟s imagination and therefore and free of
any boundaries. In line with the postmodern approach, the playwrights use many
innovative techniques to enrich their plays. Only within plays of Tom Stoppard we will
find so many creative techniques, such as a play within a play (The Real Thing), split
characters and their dialogue (The Invention of Love), plays based on intertextuality
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), metafictional plays with unreliable narrators
(Travesties) and many others that shall be more closely examined in the practical part of
this thesis.
The list of the themes could be almost infinite yet an important notion to grasp is
that the themes are exclusively based on an author‟s individuality and they descend
from their idiosyncratic approaches to theatre. It almost seems as if the setting were not
that important in these plays, as Esslin observes, “It is a theatre of situation as against a
theatre of events in sequence, and therefore it uses a language based on patterns of
concrete images rather than argument and discursive speech” (Esslin 393). We may thus
conclude that it is neither the themes nor the plot that play the crucial part in absurdist
plays. The predominant role is reserved to language and the language as such is the
setting.
A summary of this subchapter may be taken from Esslin‟s point of view: “As the
theatre of the absurd is not concerned with conveying information or presenting the
problems or destinies of characters that exist outside the author‟s inner world, as it does
not expound a thesis or debate ideological propositions, it is not concerned with the
representation of events, the narration of the fate or the adventures of characters, but
instead with the presentation of one‟s individual‟s basic situation” (Esslin 393). We
have therefore come to a conclusion that the themes and particular settings of plays are
not as significant as the characters themselves and the language they use. The situation
is purely based on the author‟s imagination and as we can see in Stoppard‟s work, they
can get very random and arbitrary.
However, it is important to emphasize that even though the plot is only peripheral
in these plays, it nevertheless stays a valid source of entertainment since what makes the
theatre of the absurd so intriguing is not only their absurd dialogues, but also the absurd
and awkward situations the characters find themselves in in the first place. And it seems
that no matter what the situation is, every absurdist character in a way becomes a very
own Sisyphus pushing his boulder uphill in a vain attempt to accomplish the
unaccomplishable, which is to find a purpose in a world where all life is without a
purpose.
1.1.7. Is Stoppard a proper absurdist playwright?
In the previous chapters, we have briefly introduced some of the crucial
tendencies in the theatre of the 20th century that have undeniably influenced Tom
Stoppard‟s and his work. Postmodernism is a broad and ambiguous term which has
already been mentioned before, there are however so many traces of postmodernism to
be found in Stoppard‟s work that it would prove vain to question them. Yet, it would be
not without a dispute to claim that Tom Stoppard is a genuine absurdist. As the practical
part of this thesis shall endeavour to illustrate, his plays are by no means generic. There
are plays that seem very absurd (for example the resemblance between the famous duo
of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and their also famous counterpart Vladimir and
Estragon is impossible to ignore) and there are also play with an actual plot and deal
with moral issues and they in fact show a character development and other classical
features of theatre.
Let us first analyse the common features that Stoppard shares with the theatre of
the absurd. His characters often seem to be lost in this world and devoid of purpose.
Their dialogues do not usually convey any meaning as they mostly speak to themselves
and thus we may frequently witness what seem to be two independent monologues that
are simply overlapping each other by sequences of lines. The characters of his plays
rarely achieve what they strive for. They might search for purpose yet in the end they
never find it. All the certainties are missing in these plays and there is usually no clear
temporal development which is so typical for realistic plays. (We will later discuss that
this does not necessarily apply to Stoppard in all cases, yet some of the plays do possess
this feature).
Another important feature that is similar to the theatre of the absurd is the usage of
humour and irony. Misunderstandings, absurdity of language and failures of
communication create space for humour and Stoppard excels in all of these. Play with
words is one of most powerful tools when it comes to comedy and as such it is very
similar to comic dialogues that we may come across in typical absurdist plays.
Now let us examine what separates Stoppard from the theatre of the absurd and
what prevents us from labelling him as a pure absurdist. The characters of the theatre of
the absurd (and everyone according to existentialists) lack a purpose in this world and
cannot find anything worth pursuing. Their reaction to this sense of meaningless is then
genuinely stoical. This fate should be accepted and not fought because fighting it would
also prove to be only futile. These characters are all like Sisyphus, with their different
yet still the same boulders of meaninglessness that they cannot get rid of. However, in
Tom Stoppard‟s plays the characters do not renounce the fact that there could be a
meaning to this world after all, and some of them genuinely endeavour to find it.
(artists, chaos theory etc.) To use a summary statement coming from a leading
Stoppardian scholar, “ the theatre of the absurd and existential philosophy in general
promote the idea that the world is utterly meaningless and so the pursuit of meaning is
nothing but a fool‟s errand. For Stoppard, however, there is a persistent belief that
meaningfulness exists and that there is a governing force of some sort that organizes the
universe. Much like absurdists, Stoppard‟s vision concedes we see a world that appears
disjointed and random. But for Stoppard appearance and actuality are not the same
thing, leaving a lingering hope that there is an organizing principle – even perhaps a god
– that simply has escaped our vision up to this point” (Demastes 26).
This Stoppardian approach to life therefore fights the absurdist fatality and
meaningless. Even though the characters never accomplish to fully find their purpose in
this world, they are nevertheless on the journey of seeking this governing principle.
That is what sets them in motion and motivates them. They try to move from their
absurd situation and try to fight the fate. Even though they typically fail to do so, the
overall sense of having some sort a quest that is inherent to their minds is what separates
them from typical defeated characters of the theatre of the absurd. Their search for
purpose shall later be discussed in more detail in the practical part.
1.1.8. The author - Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia (born Tomas Straussler) in 1937, in
the atmosphere of an impending global conflict. Stoppard‟s father was employed by the
Bata Company and as his family was of a Jewish descent, they found themselves among
other Jewish families transported to South East Asia in order to evade the Nazi
persecution. Even though his Czech roots were widely suppressed by his mother who
was keen on forgetting the sad eastern European experience after she started a new life
in India and her husband died, Tom nevertheless never forgot his Czech background.
Despite not knowing the language, he became thoroughly acquainted with the Czech
culture later in his life and he closely followed the struggle of the Czech people under
the oppressive dominion of the Soviet Union. His friendship with the former Czech
President Václav Havel, who was also an excellent absurdist, is well-known.
After his mother remarried to a British officer and the WW2 ended, Tom‟s
upbringing was moved from India and Singapore, respectively to the British Isles. Just
like he did to his Czech experience, Stoppard also returns to his Indian adventures in
some of his plays. After finally settling in Britain, his span of locations he chose for his
play came to an end as most of them indeed take place in the British environment.
Naturally, not all of the plays strictly adhere to this concept that Stoppard would have to
visit and experience a country first, and then place his play into it. We may observe that
this is precisely the case of a play such as Night and Day which is set in a fictional
African country which Stoppard obviously could not have visited even if he had tried.
Night and Day is also a representative of a let us say a direction of life, a direction
that Stoppard for a certain period of life pursued. The whole play draws on his
experience as a journalist which was Stoppard‟s main occupation before he was chosen
for a grant and finally could dedicate his endeavours to his passion, the theatre, on a full
time basis. Stoppard could never thrive on journalism for an extensive period of time as
he himself claimed that he always felt too much confined by the boundaries of the
serious journalist work. Later we may observe that Stoppard freed himself from any
boundaries, as his plays are a jungle of ingenuity and experiment.
Ensuing the productive period of time under the grant, Stoppard produced several
plays and his first major success ensued shortly afterwards. To the present day,
Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead is his most renowned play. It triggered the
success of Tom Stoppard as a playwright and it still remains one of his best plays, at
least considering its popularity. Its success was then largely augmented by the fact that
it was made into a movie with a same name, starring such successful actors like Gary
Oldman and Tim Roth. Stoppard participated by nothing smaller than by directing the
movie. Tom Stoppard continued to write an impressive number of plays, including
several radio plays for BBC, short one act plays, plays for television and proper fulllength plays for the stage.
Apart from his lifetime work in theatre he has also achieved a major respect for
his work in television, including an award winning screenplay for the movie
Shakespeare in love, other screenplays and the movie Anna Karenina.
2. Practical Part
2.1. Modern and postmodern literary devices in Stoppard’s
plays
As we mentioned earlier, plausibly realistic plays only constitute a minor part of
Stoppard‟s artwork (that is not to say that their value is any less significant than of the
others, however). Yet, his fame was mostly established by plays such as Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are Dead (1966), Travesties (1974)or Jumpers (1972). Stoppard‟s
plays as a whole share a common feature. The audience almost never gets all the
information about the characters, about the plot and about the themes. What is left for
them is to try to guess.
Stoppard is known for telling a story about a crazy image of a man in pyjamas
holding a cup of coffee and a peacock and the confusion that it must have caused to
motorists passing by. They will never know the whole picture and that is what we
experience when we are watching a Stoppard‟s play. “Glimpses, vignettes, incomplete
pictures.Something far less than the whole story. For Stoppard this tale does much to
capture the human condition. We all want to know the whole story, to see the big
picture, but all we get is a limited view of what is going on. Stoppard‟s theatre reminds
us of the myopia that is so frustratingly central to being human” (Demastes 2). And
quite accordingly, Stoppard never provides us with all the facts, just with a vast number
of tips of a myriad of icebergs. That is what makes the play so intriguing even to re-read
constantly since it is impossible to perceive most of what Stoppard intended during the
short first encounter with the play.
What constitutes the dialogues of Stoppard‟s absurdist plays is the style that he
summed up rather fittingly. “There is very often no single, clear statement in my plays.
What there is a series of conflicting statements by conflicting characters, and they tend
to play a sort of infinite leap-frog. You know, and argument, a refutation, then a rebuttal
of the refutation, then a counter-rebuttal, so that there is never any point in this
intellectual leap-frog at which I feel that is the speech to stop it on, that is the last word”
(Demastes 27).
One can hardly imagine what thought processes must have occurred in Tom
Stoppard‟s mind in order for him to come up with ideas for his plays and for his
intriguing characters. Sometimes we may witness plays about agents, other plays
revolve around a psychotic triangle player or a philosophical painter of a bridge. There
are plays that take place in London and there also plays that will take us to unreal
locations such as the river Styx (Invention of Love). Elsewhere, we encounter two
Elizabethan figures tossing coins and see the coin come up as heads 90 times in a row.
“It is a highly improbable event, but it is not impossible” (Demastes 3). This simple
sentence signifies a major principle governing the realm of most Stoppard‟s plays. The
situations are never truly impossible, yet they are usually so improbable that they almost
certainly have never happened before. And Stoppard enjoys putting his improbable
characters into hardly conceivable situations and see how they behave. It almost seems
as if Stoppard in his plays conducts experiments on human nature and uses boundary
situations in order to do so.
Stoppard himself endeavoured to briefly specify the thought process of a
development of a play. He did so in his play Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977).
In the introduction of the play he mentions that “Usually and preferably, a play
originates in the author‟s wish to write about some particular thing. The form of the play
then follows from the requirements of the subject” (Stoppard, Every 5). So it seems that
as a general rule, Stoppard first decides on the subject matter and then chooses a form of
the play. It is not always the case, however. It almost appears that Stoppard works full
time to disprove any general rule that might be applied to his work as a whole.
From time to time, Stoppard admits that despite what he previously had said about
writing a play, even the form may occasionally precede the subject matter. We may
illustrate this on an example. In one of these instances, Stoppard claims that he was
given a rare opportunity to write a play about an orchestra by the principle of the
London Symphony Orchestra, Mr Previn. Stoppard agreed and found himself in a
situation in which he had no subject matter whatsoever, only the form of the play which meant that it would include an orchestra and also would be accompanied by an
orchestra. The orchestra was supposed to be able to provide a background for the play
and at the same time it was supposed to constitute a crucial part of the play itself. “In
short, it was going to be a real play, to be performed in conjunction with, and bound up
with, a symphony orchestra. As far as we knew, nobody had tried to do anything like
that before; which, again, is not the preferred reason for starting a play, though I confess
it weighed with me (Stoppard, Every 5).
Unfortunately, Stoppard‟s lone experience with orchestras and creating music was
very limited. It was restricted to his childhood where he used to be a member of a
musical group where his sole responsibility was to play the part of a triangle player.
Despite such limitation Stoppard came up with an ingenious solution to his problem and
decided that the triangle player would in fact be an insane main character who actually
thinks that he has an orchestra. This idea may sound simple enough but it would not be
Stoppard if he would be satisfied just with this one. He also wanted to write a play about
political prisoners so why not put a political prisoner into the same cell with the triangle
maniac? And just like that the play‟s main framework was designed.
From this example we may deduce that the plot and characters of Stoppard‟s plays
are often very much based on a sudden inspiration and usually do not possess any
deeper meaning other than that Stoppard simply wanted to write about them. What
makes the overall image complete is the symbiosis of the postmodern techniques,
singular themes and unique characters that make him such a brilliant playwright.
2.1.1. Stoppard’s play withtime and space
2.1.2. Temporal techniques
There is an abundance of Stoppardian techniques and most of them may seem
very extraordinary indeed. In the same manner it is very intriguing to analyse them.
Stoppard often likes to play with the idea of splitting a play into several parts in any
conceivable or unconceivable way possible. These divisions usually tend to be of a
temporal character, where the actual play gets divided into two or more time frames that
are somehow connected. Often the connection unfolds very subtly. This fragmentation
is sometimes very close but quite frequently very free. In this manner, the play often
splits into multiple locations with people living in different period of time. Sometimes
the locations change even though the stage obviously does not. On numerous occasions
though, the same location is occupied by characters from different time periods or any
combination of the space and time continuum may occur.
In Where Are They Now (1970), Stoppard‟s probably most typical temporal
division of a play appears. “As usual, Stoppard crosses two plots for farcical effect” …
“Scenes in the here and now alternate with flashbacks to a school dinner of twenty-four
years earlier, marked by cruelties and humiliation that undercut the old boys‟
sentimental reveries (Kelly 37).” In the play (and also in other plays as well), Stoppard
strives to create a certain symbiosis of the two or more storylines and then he
endeavours to show often subtle connection between them. He illustrates the fact in the
stage note preceding the play Where Are They Now: “The play is set almost entirely in
two inter-cut locations, namely School Dinner (1945) and Old Boys‟ Dinner (1969).
Part of the idea is to move between the two without using any of the familiar grammar
or fading down and fading up; the action is continuous” (Stoppard, Where 61).
It may seem rather obvious but it is an important distinction to clarify. While most
realistic plays may present separate storylines that eventually cross and climax,
Stoppard‟s plays emanate the sense of connectivity between the storylines at all times.
The flashbacks constitute an important part of this phenomenon. Kelly comments on
this: “This radio play is one of the earliest examples of Stoppard‟s interest in the
mystery formula that will characterize his mature stage works. The major mystery in
this piece has to do with the source of the flashbacks. The first of the four begins in the
distant past and the remaining three move toward the present, becoming shorter as they
grow nearer. But from whose point of view are they spoken” (Kelly, 37)? And indeed
Stoppard seems to be very fond of using flashbacks not only to show what happened
sometime in the past, but mainly to change the overall character of the play.
As we may notice throughout the analysis performed by this thesis, apart from
other techniques that use the temporal fragmentation, Stoppard frequently enjoys to
portray characters in their youth and then as they are getting older. Then he uses
numerous techniques to further illuminate these split characters.
This typical temporal device which Stoppard is so keen on using is therefore
basically to split the characters within the progress of a play. Thus we may frequently
witness the development of a character that may undergo several changes in the course
of his or her life, as portrayed by the play. We may notice a considerable abundance of
this pattern as Stoppard seems to be particularly interested in a person‟s life and its
changes.
In the play The Invention of Love (1997)we may follow the two time periods of
life of an old scholar and his younger self in the midst of his studies. The old scholar
named Housman (or AEH) reminisces about his life and ponders his choices. Once
again, this technique would be rather conventional if it were not for another Stoppardian
twist. The play is introduced by the illusion of the old Housman who is sailing with
Charon on the river Styx. This suggests that he have just died and is about to
recapitulate on his life. At the same time it nevertheless question the validity of the facts
presented from that point on. That happens because one can never be sure if the story is
just a dream or an illusion. And more importantly, one can hardly listen to a narration of
a dead man without any doubts. What is probably even more fascinating is what
happens when the two characters actually meet and engage in a dialogue. Overlapping
of the two characters and their perspective constantly takes place and they intermingle
when they jointly overcome boundaries of the real and step into the unreal.
Travesties constitute yet another example of a play where the major character,
here also in the role of a storyteller, is split into his current self and also into his former
young self. We have witnessed this before (Invention of Love, When We Were Young),
as we very well may see from the analyses conducted above in this particular chapter.
Nevertheless, Stoppard once again proves that his ingenuity knows no boundaries and
he adds a new twist.
This time he turns the narrator into an unreliable narrator where his memory
apparently got fogged during the course of time. Throughout the play we bear witness to
sequences of flashbacks and different storyline perspectives although we never know if
what we are experiencing are true facts or mere delusions of the storyteller, Henry Carr.
What makes this technique unique is how Stoppard employs it. In accordance with the
real old folk amnesia, Stoppard decides to include the failing and looping memory into
his play. By doing this, not only does he reach an intense comical effect, he also almost
realistically imitates the actual underperformance of the memory of amnesiac elderly
people. In the play itself it looks as follows; several dialogues get repeated multiple
times and they get constantly changed throughout the play. Even when reading the play
one gets an impression of a monologue of a singular person who is not really certain
about the facts. This way, Tom Stoppard imitates the actual storytelling where one
usually tends to get back repeatedly and also change the actual stories, be that willingly
or unintentionally.
An interesting occurrence of this phenomenon happens in the beginning of Carr‟s
monologue during one of his flashbacks to his youth. In those, he reiterates the
following dialogue between his young self and his servant:
“Bennett: Yes, sir. I have put the newspapers and telegrams
on the sideboard, sir. Carr: Is there anything of interest?”
(Stoppard,Travesties 10).
This simple sequence of two speech acts gets reiterated multiple times as we
already mentioned, and it serves a definite purpose. Stoppard himself provided an
explanation in a stage direction in the text: “A note on the above: the scene (and most of
the play) is under the erratic control of Carr‟s memory, which is not notably reliable,
and also of his various prejudices and delusions. One result is that the story (like a toy
train perhaps) occasionally jumps the rails and has to be restarted at the point where it
goes wild” (Stoppard, Travesties 11). Thus in reality the same question always receives
a different answer that actually represents one of old Carr‟s odd opinions. The loop of
this dialogue (which in fact is the old Carr‟s monologue) illustrates the withered
condition of his memory and further solidifies our perception of him as a unreliable
narrator. The effect of such play with time and narration style is truly unique and very
intriguing to follow. It attributes considerably to the overall success of the play.
Probably one of the most interesting temporal techniques occurs in one of the
Stoppard‟s masterpieces, Artist Descending a Staircase. Owing to its ingenious
structure, this play is a pure joy to follow as it gets unravelled. The time of the storyline
changes several times and it basically starts at the end when the main characters are old
and one of them dies. Stoppard then rewinds their lives and always pushes them a little
back in the past. These time shifts seem almost natural and they serve to an interesting
illumination of a development of the friendship of three friends. While all this is taking
place, the audience even tends to forget that the play is actually about solving a death
case and at the same time showing a love paradox which may change one‟s life so easily
and unexpectedly. Stoppard‟s choice of structure seems absolutely baffling as the play
reaches its climax according to a set pattern, where the characters travel back in time
only to travel back again. The play ends with whimsically when all the characters are
old again and the solution is a pure example of ingenuity.
The structure of the play is clarified in the note preceding the play in the
beginning: “There are eleven scenes. The play begins in the here-and-now; the next five
scenes are each a flashback from the previous scene; the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth
and eleventh scenes are, respectively, continuations of the fifth, fourth, third, second
and first. So the play is set temporally in six parts, in the sequence ABCDEFEDCBA”
(Stoppard, Artist, 11). This indicates how far Stoppard can push his plays and
innovative techniques and at the same achieve such marvel of a result.
Quite similar pattern may be observed in a more famous play which is called
Arcadia. In Arcadia the events of the two storylines are separated by a whole century.
However, the set and props are usually shared in both storylines on a regular basis. It is
a true craftsmanship that Stoppard is able to combine different time period, different
plots and then playfully join them and bind them by one common location. Similarly to
the play Indian Ink, the younger generation in the play is keen on assembling
information and evidence concerning the life of the generation of the past. While this is
happening, the flashbacks take us to the actual events of the past. Both these storylines
alternate very smoothly and they complement one another.
In Indian Ink, the inversion of time appears in a considerably more
straightforward manner. The two storylines are developed one by one and that is
happening almost simultaneously. Of course the absolute overlap is not possible but we
may observe that the characters tend to dwell on similar themes as the play unfolds
(quite similarly to Arcadia). One storyline always reacts to the other and vice versa. It
seems vital to stress here that this is a major theme in Stoppard‟s play. No matter how
haphazard or random any temporal jumps or any other similar shenanigans may seem,
under deeper scrutiny they will almost inevitably prove to maintain a logical link of
sorts. These links and patterns are one of the reasons that make Stoppard‟s plays excel.
The random, chaotic and unreal is somehow in perfect harmony with the real and
orderly.
Sometimes Stoppard uses a very conventional method to show discrepancies
between time periods as he simply starts with one period, then moves couple of years
into the future and thus progresses the play in accord with the forward perception of
time. A perfect example of such play is Rock and Roll where the main characters grow
older as the play progresses. Not only does their physical appearance change (Stoppard
provides elaborate stage direction as to how to change the characters‟ demeanours in
order to comply with the demands of the time shifts) but it is important to note that the
time shifts also serve to the purpose of showing the characters‟ mental development. In
Rock and Roll, the characters that once were vigorous and fiery all of sudden turn
decrepit and weary. The change in their appearance is accompanied by mental maturity
as well.
2.1.3. Spatial techniques
Apart from numerous temporal techniques, Stoppard frequently fragments the
play just by a simple division of the space on the stage. The stage thus serves an
important role where not only the characters tend to surprise by their odd mannerisms,
but also the stage or the location of the plot may abruptly change. And again, the change
usually seems very unceremonious and matter of fact. A typical example of
suchdivision can be found in one of the earlier plays of Stoppard‟s, his first significantly
successful play called Enter a Free Man (1968(. In this play, the main character George
oscillates between two locations. The first is his home, an arena where he continuously
struggles to prove himself in front of the judging eyes of his family, especially in front
of his daughter. The second is his sanctuary, a pub where he spends almost every day
whenever he needs break from the shackling atmosphere of his house.
The stage in this play is simply separated in the middle and while it conveniently
serves the logistic purposes of the play, it also helps to illuminate the changes in
George‟s peculiar character. While he always remains an incurable crackpot artist who
is a perfect example of self-deception and who just never quits, there are several
differences in his behaviour according to where he finds himself at the moment. At
home, George is portrayed as a somewhat regular father who fails to connect with his
daughter, which is by no means unusual. His wife does not follow his peculiar passion
for inventing but as a devoted wife she nevertheless supports him. However, when the
lighting of the stage switches and we find ourselves under the atmosphere of a dingy
pub, George‟s character undergoes a considerable change as well. His delusions
augment but more remarkably his confidence gets out of control. No longer is he a
rather timid man but now in his own eyes he truly is someone. He becomes the inventor,
he gets in charge and he becomes a specialist in almost anything. A viewer obviously
may expect his impending downfall but it is still a very intriguing sight to watch.
2.1.4. Play within a play
Play within a play or a book within a book is one of the major techniques used in
postmodernism. The surge of something within something has been repeatedly
reappearing throughout the 20th and 21st century plays and novels. It is a very popular
theme that can also be found in numerous films and other works of art. The tradition
goes back as far as to Shakespeare and his Midsummer Night’s Dream and also Hamlet
which was the basis for Stoppard‟s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Some
of the most renowned postmodern examples could be the novels Dorian by Will Self
and Atonement by Ian McEwan where the stories seem to be narrated by the author but
in in the end we eventually find out that that they were in fact narrated by the main
characters.
Stoppard also finds this popular technique intriguing and resolves to use it on
numerous occasions as well. When seeing a Stoppard‟s play, one may never be
absolutely certain whether what is actually happening on the stage is real. The audience
gets deceived again and again by usage of dreams, illusions, unreliable storytelling and
random scenes that are largely based on a character‟s contemplation or thoughts.
However, we are never provided with the possibility of seeing the thought bubble just
like we do in comic books, so we are restricted to guessing. Guessing,or inferring, to
use a more scholarly language, is usually the last resort of everyone who tries to
thoroughly grasp the meanings of Stoppard‟s plays. The audience will frequently leave
the theatre dazed and confused as to what they just saw and what it actually signified.
The beautiful thing about Stoppard‟s plays is that not only does he mystify the audience
with all of the above and more, he also scarcely provides an explanation.
Probably the most renowned example of a play within a play comes from his first
majorly successful play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Just as the
protagonists are inspired and taken from Hamlet, the idea of the play within a play is
might have been borrowed from it. The play within a play here happens a little
differently than in other works of art, where we usually discover that the whole story
was in fact just a play and whatever happened was not real. This time, Stoppard applies
the concept of a play within a play in the most literal sense imaginable. He directly
places his play into Shakespeare‟s. It is not a classical play within a play per se,
however. The two plays take place at the same time and they frequently overlap. The
overlap is noticeable when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern wander around the castle of
Elsinore and interact with the other characters from Hamlet. Whenever they interact
they adopt the language of the period and thus proving their authenticity: “We are now
in Hamlet, but with a difference. The difference significantly does not lie in a rewriting
of Shakespeare‟s dialogue – that remains intact as an instrument of the text‟s power but
in an inversion of the spoken and the acted” (Kelly 77). They witness the murder of
Polonius, they get dispatched to accompany Hamlet on his journey to England, and they
communicate with the Tragedians or let us say actors. While all this is happening, we
may notice that the original events from Hamlet do not change, yet the inserted actions
and reactions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are all Stoppard‟s.
The Tragedians who gain much more space and text in Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Deadthan in Hamlet also perform a play within a play, the reenactment of the king‟s and also of Polonius‟ murders. This time Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern find themselves as members of the audience during the dress rehearsal.
They frequently interrupt and comment on the performance and Player (the head
tragedian) vice versa comments on the play for them and enters the dialogue on
numerous occasions even though most of his lines seem to be of a rather monological
character where he expresses his views on theatre and life. He also shows Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern what his actors are capable happens (that also happens during their
first encounter in the beginning of the play).
We may note that Stoppard uses the theme of a play within a play in Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are Dead on several levels, where he first puts his play into a play by
Shakespeare and then he also puts an actual play within a play into that play. The
difference of these three levels is also backed by the usage of language. “Three kinds of
playing cross and re-cross in this act: the highly charged and stylized presenting of
Hamlet; the intimate bantering of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; and the melodramatic
rehearsing of the Tragedians” (Kelly 78). The result is an ingenious and often also
perplexing spectacle but we have grown familiar with this effect in Stoppard‟s plays as
time progresses. However, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead he first showed
his full potential when it comes to the ingenuity of his plays. Some of the metafictional
techniques predominate in other plays and also the theme of a play within a play shall
be found in other major works to be analysed below.
Another play to be analysed from the point of view of a play within a play is The
Real Thing, Stoppard‟s play about relationships and actors. It can be said with a relative
ease that this play also fits more into the realm of the traditional realistic plays, yet the
feature of a play within a play and several other techniques make it more postmodern. It
is nevertheless not one of Stoppard‟s absurdist plays. In the beginning let us point out
the usage of the word „real‟ in the title of the play. Perhaps it was unintentional but
when it comes to Stoppard this word tends to become very ambiguous and if something
is referred to as being „real‟ it quite frequently turns out to be anything but real. It is up
to the audience what has been implied and what in fact is real. Very similar usage of the
word may be found in the title of the older play The Real Inspector Hound that shall be
discussed shortly. And again, the word „real‟ in the title will serve a similar function as
the audience will probably have no idea who the real inspector is throughout the whole
play. In the same manner we are left wondering what actually the „real thing‟ is
throughout the play. And as we are in the world of Tom Stoppard, we obviously get no
answer, only mere hints.
The Real Thing begins with a scene from a rehearsal of a play that in fact the main
character Henry wrote and in which his wife plays the main part. Even though there is
no hint towards the fact that we are seeing a play within a play, it is not impossible to
guess the fact even before the developments unravel. The play performed in the
beginning does not seem very Stoppardian or in other words, it just feels too normal and
straightforward. And as we know, Stoppard is known for many merits, but these two are
not among them. Stoppard may have used this realistic style to show that he was
capable of writing a realistic play or perhaps to show how shallow these plays may tend
to become. Demastes argues: “It is a little too witty, polished and controlled. It feels
almost as if Stoppard is confirming the critical response that he is unable to write true
emotions into his plays” (93), however, the question is whether such a style was
intentional or not. If that is so, Stoppard might have indeed endeavoured to illustrate the
lack of appeal of realistic plays.
The intriguing part of The Real Thing is that,much like the content of the play
within the play deals with relationships, betrayals and other aspects of relationships, the
actual story of the play is also teeming with similar motifs and narrative devices. And
since all the characters are in fact actors, the audience can never be certain whether what
they are seeing is true this time or if it is perhaps a play within a play within a play.
Everything boils down to the question what the real thing and just like it applies to the
formula of relationships (which the characters are seeking) it also apply to the play itself
as we are left pondering if we just saw the real thing or not.
Following the example set by the previous couple of lines, the next play within a
play shall be taken from an earlier play called The Real Inspector Hound. And once
again since we are analysing a play by Tom Stoppard, the title suggests that
distinguishing who the „real‟ inspector is shall be anything but simple. This enigmatic
play full of mystery alternates between a dialogue of two theatre critics, Moon and
Birdboot, and an actual play that they are observing and commenting on (very much
like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern when they are watching Tragedians). First they both
present their criticism largely based on their selfish motives and they develop their
views while the play in front of them is developing. Thus Stoppard creates a sequence
of overlapping and confusing events that prove to be challenging to follow. The
spectators basically have to follow two tracks at the same time – “the frame play, which
is itself divided between the critics‟ private and public utterances – and the inner play
with its overacted mockery of thriller conventions” (Kelly 83).
Stoppard then proceeds to merge the two plays into one when Moon is having a
daydream in which he fantasizes about murdering his rival critic Higgs. At that point,
the frame play and the inner play begin to seem very similar. To push matters and
confusion further, the illusion of Birdboot‟s dreams becomes real as they materialize on
the stage. Now the original critics become entangled in the play itself similarly to the
case when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern become a part of a Tragedians‟ rehearsal. And
the play begins again but this time with the critics in the play. From that point on it
ceases to be possible to maintain any distinction who the actor is, who the critics are and
who the real people are. Once again Stoppard shows that the word „real‟ in his context
assumes an astounding number of interpretations. And we as we also often may notice
in Stoppard‟s theatre, the boundaries between the real and the unreal, the fiction and
non-fiction get completely juxtaposed.
.
2.1.5. Plays about agents as an offshoot of Stoppard’s plays within plays
As Stoppard is keen on using the technique of a play with a play in his plays to
illustrate how thin the boundaries of the real and the fictional really are (especially in
his plays), he nevertheless also dedicated a considerable effort into how can reality
become distorted for individuals. Following his enjoyment of plays based on a mystery
he mainly labelled the rupture of one‟s personality and perception of reality in his plays
about spies. On the example of double or triple agents he shows that they have to stay in
multiple characters at all times and thus coexist in multiple plays within plays. The
hopelessness of such situation is portrayed in The Dog It Was That Died (1982) where a
double agent Ruper Purvis tries to commit a suicide in the beginning of the play. Later
on the audience finds out that he was no longer able to distinguish who he was working
for and lost track of what were or were not facts. In Hapgood, a similar dilemma is dealt
with but with a different conclusion. “Hapgood features a triple (or even quadruple)
agent who solves Purvis‟s dilemma by admitting and accepting the reality of complex
and contradictory commitments” (Kelly 53).
Purvis‟s dilemma represents an allusion not only to how the real world works, but
also how facts are treated in Stoppard‟s play. Purvis is constantly being told multiple
and often contradictory „facts‟ whose reliability he cannot verify because it simply is
not in his powers and even if it were, there have been so many that he is no longer
capable of such distinction. Quite similarly people, despite all their efforts (as Stoppard
often suggests), never fully comprehend every fact possible because human beings are
simply not capable of such power of thought. And indeed Stoppard accordingly never
presents us with all the facts necessary as we already mentioned elsewhere. Purvis‟s
dilemma, which dominates most of Stoppard‟s plays, transcends from the plays and
questions the basic notion of knowledge, gnoseology and limits of human beings.
Fortunately, throughout his work, Stoppard also offers different solutions to the problem
than Purvis‟s.
2.1.6. Unreliable narrators
In the theoretical part of this thesis we have already mentioned that one of the
major streams in the postmodern literature is the usage of unreliable narrators as a
narrative technique used a source of confusion and uncertainty. This phenomenon is
widely spread in literature and usually features a narrator who may or may not be
misleading the reader or the audience. He may frequently even do so unintentionally.
Stoppard uses unreliable narrators on numerous occasions and probably the most
renowned one is Henry Carr in Travesties. We have already briefly analysed the play
from the perspective of its temporal division but what purpose does the unreliable
narrator Carr in fact serve? Henry Carr is an old man who reminisces about his youth
(and therefore both old Carr and young Carr appear on the stage) and provides the
audience with his memories, political views and also records of his acquaintance with
several important personas of the 1920s, namely James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Lenin
(he also alludes to Wilde but he is not present in the play) Stoppard commented on such
choice of the characters: “Joyce, Tzara and Lenin were all in Zurich at the same time.
It‟s not true that they met or were aware of each other‟s existence. Naturally I had to
percolate the whole thing through this man‟s fallible memory” (Demastes 69). Tom
Stoppard, as is his custom, exploits the possibilities of such encounters and possible
recollections of them, by the means of using an unreliable narrator.
. The play is narrated through the words of Old Carr and basically the whole play
takes place in his mind. Gradually the audience becomes aware of the repetitions of
some of the same scenes with growing suspicion. At the end, to confirm the fact that
they are witnessing a play where facts are only as precise as is an old man‟s memory of
them we hear the narrator himself questioning his view of the past:
“Carr: Incidentally, you may or may not have noticed that I
got my wires crossed a bit here and there” (Stoppard, Travesties
43).
Stoppard presents his omnipresent attitude in which he questions all sources of
hard facts. This time he uses an old man‟s memory to do so. The effect on the real
characters of the artist shall be later discussed in the chapter on intertextuality.
The illusion of reality eventually shatters completely when we find out that Carr
in fact was not who he had claimed to be and that he was of no real significance. “Carr
turns out to have been a minor bureaucrat, unimportant and unsuccessful in attaining the
full life of glamor and import he dreams about. But his imaginative recollections, in the
form of Travesties itself, have managed to convert the dull lead of his life into the rich
ore of art” (Demastes 73). This shows that even though the whole play was a mere
illusion and fabrication of reality. “Carr may have travestied Wilde‟s masterpiece,
travestied Joyce, Tzara, and history in general, but through those travesties Carr
transformed his life to art” (Demastes 73). And this is precisely what Stoppard is doing
throughout all his work. He fabricates facts, misleads the audience, twists history,
borrows fictional and real personas, challenges philosophy, science and art and puts
everything into a big melting pot that are his phenomenal plays. And most importantly,
he never forgets to entertain.
Travesties is not the only Stoppard‟s play with an unreliable narrator though. In
Where Are They Now (1969) Stoppard experiments with self-deception and differences
in the collective memory. We have already mentioned that the play is intercut into two
story lines that alternate. The play is based on flashbacks of the old versions of old boys.
An important distinction is that the flashbacks differ according to their perception of the
event. By using nicknames Stoppard creates a certain mystery as to who do the
nicknames refer to. Stoppard deliberately deceives the audience by attributing
contradictory characteristics to the young and the old versions of the characters. “We
have been fooled into mistaking one old boy for another by the narrative‟s ambiguity as
surely as Marks has been fooled by his selective memory” (Kelly 37). The mystery of
the play lies in the flashbacks as they develop from the distant past to the more recent
past. Yet we never know from whose perspective they are being narrated.
In Invention of Love, Stoppard again uses the narrative technique of an older man
narrating his life through various flashbacks similarly to Henry Carr‟s narrative in
Travesties. However, he undergoes a different path. This time Stoppard combines a
much more down-to-earth narrative than the one we witnessed in Travesties with an
unreal situation of an old man crossing the river Styx. The conflict in the play is not so
much about facts as in other plays, but this time about different life perspectives of the
young and the old. The less experienced Housman defends his life against his older
deceased self. In the remainder of the play, the scenes of the young Housman with his
friends and the scenes of the pondering old Housman alternate.
The whole play reminds us of an elegy of an old dying man contemplates his life
and while most of the memories might in face be according to what really happened,
there is a different aspect to pay attention. The overall sense of the narrative is a defence
of one‟s life. Housman is defending his life and his life decisions and thus Stoppard
provides as with yet another unique narrator and narrative technique.
2.2. Themes and characters of selected Tom Stoppard’s plays
2.2.1. Towards realism – dealing with the politics
The world of Tom Stoppard‟s plays is indeed a rich tapestry of themes and
techniques. As we already hinted in the theoretical part, Tom Stoppard became
renowned for his plays not only as for being a pure absurdist, but what has been labelled
a post-absurdist. Few of his plays, especially those in set in exotic countries such as
Night and Day (1978)and Indian Ink (1995) could be easily considered realistic plays.
Same distinction is valid for his politically edged plays from the Czech environment.
We may include the plays Rock’n’Roll(2006) and Professional Foul (1977) into this
subdivision. Another instance of realism in Stoppard‟s plays is his trilogy Coast of
Utopia (2002) taking place in the tsarist Russia of the 19th century. A different approach
towards political issues are plays about spies and politics such as Hapgood (1988) or
The Dog it was that Died (1982). First let us take a closer look on these more realistic
plays.
It is interesting that most of the plays that take place outside of Britain are far
more realistic than the more absurdist and postmodern plays that Stoppard is probably
more famous for. These more realistic plays are set in places like India, tsarist Russia,
Czechoslovakia and Africa. However, it would not be Stoppard if the plays were
altogether realistic and without any Stoppardian feature or postmodern twist. Time
jumps, overlapping of storylines and the sense of a certain absurdity still can be found in
these more realistic plays of Stoppard‟s.
It is not without a complete surprise that Stoppard was frequently criticised for his
apolitical attitude towards his plays and a lack of social integrity from the point of view
of his left wing critics. Demastes speaks about the following when it comes to
Stoppard‟s plays: “But critics tended now to express a growing disappointment at the
passionlessness of these urbane, witty, intellectually challenging farce-comedies. Added
to this complaint was concern that his playes were distinctly non-political and
unnervingly comically upbeat. These two qualities ran counter to trends in
contemporary British theatre, dominated at the time by the legace of the angry young
playwrights, leftist ideology, and existential sobriety” (Demastes 19. Elsewhere the
opposite approach undertaken by Stoppard is commented on: “Stoppard has said on
numerous occasions that his plays must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of
usefulness
and
that
he
should have the courage of my lack of conviction suggesting that social change is the
farthest thing from Stoppard‟s playwriting mind (Demastes 42). We may indeed observe
that unlike for example the generation of the Angry Young Men who almost required
that a play should possess a certain degree of social awareness and criticism, Stoppard
does not adhere to this principle. His play generally do not provide the fight of an
oppressed class or an individual and Stoppard himself claimed that his political
persuasion is much closer to the middle right.
Stoppard rarely felt the need to write an open criticism upon political issues and
his attitude is beautifully clarified in his famous statement: “Stoppard, as quoted above,
repeatedly insists that if your goal is direct and immediate change of a certain situation,
„you could hardly do worse than write a play about it‟” (Demastes 42). Stoppard is very
well aware of the reality of what an individual or an artist can or cannot do and what are
his limits when it comes to social change. And he comments on this state of events with
his typical light-hearted humour which may also be perceived as a subtle ridicule on his
fellow writers who have endeavoured to do such futile thing, at least from Stoppard‟s
point of view.
However, it can be stated with certainty that this apolitical attitude has not always
prevailed. There seems to be one thing that causes stir even in Stoppard‟s apolitical
persuasion and that is totalitarianism. Even though he is largely concerned with other
matters between life and death, he cannot remain silent when it comes to oppressive
regimes. When speaking of Stoppard, Demastes uses Stoppard‟s own words; “I don‟t
lose any sleep if a policeman in Durham beats somebody up, because I know it‟s an
exceptional case … What worries me is not the bourgeois exception but the totalitarian
norm” (Demastes 42). This example clearly shows that Stoppard is by no means an
apolitical cynic nor a right wing enthusiastic, he could be considered a sober
conservativist. This is an important notion since this it is very much reflected in his
more realistic plays that may contain a political problem of sorts. However it will never
constitute a crucial part of the play.
When Stoppard draws inspiration from his Czech roots in order to write plays
about communism in Czechoslovakia, all of a sudden his plays turn out to be much
more down to earth and much more socially aware. These plays, namely
Rock’n’Rolland Professional Foul have an actual plot and well fit into the boundaries of
realism. There seems to be a correlation in which Stoppard uses more realistic style of
writing whenever he feels the urgency to comment on a social or political reality which
he otherwise seldom does in his plays. It is important to stress that these plays do not
unveil a political struggle of the characters as such. It is always just hinted on and
peripherally referred to, yet the focus of the play is on the characters and their stories.
Stoppard here produces plays that are still Stoppardian, plays that still possess a
certain degree of confusion and absurdity but at the same time they make the audience
think, and this time not only about the play itself, but also about the political issue
presented. And yet, the political dimension of the play represents just the tip of an
iceberg and it is up to the audience to infer the rest themselves. While we may feel that
Stoppard did not feel the urgency to write about serious political issues on a regular
basis, as according to him it simply is not effective, there have been at least some issues
that provoked even him to write about them.
If we were to briefly analyse the plays Rock’n’Roll and Professional Foul, two of
his more recent plays that can be considered realistic, we would find out that there is a
mixture of locations and storylines. They follow the story of several characters and in
both there is a connection between the British and the Czech environment mostly based
on relationships established in the past in Cambridge. While these two worlds are
separated and very different, they are undergoing a comparison. Nevertheless, the scope
of interest is mainly shifted towards Czechoslovakia. In Rock’n’Roll, we may notice that
the play is divided by multiple time jumps and follows several characters from different
perspectives as they grow older. The play is enriched by usage of music and some of the
bands are even mentioned in the play, especially The Plastic People of the Universe.
Stoppard deliberately uses the music in order to illuminate the rebellion against the
regime and also to recreate the atmosphere of the time period. Stoppard relates to the
Czech band especially because it corresponds with his very own political resistance. He
shows that they, just like him, do not try to change the world, they just want to be left
alone. And since they are not allowed to do so, Stoppard feels the impulse to step in.
The freedom of free speech is crucial for his political plays.
Freedom of speech constitutes a major part of Professional Foul where a
prominent British citizen unwillingly becomes witness to the methods of a totalitarian
regime when it comes to the power of suppressing the freedom of speech. It is
interesting to observe that the main British characters are mostly concerned with the
linguistic colloquium that they are to attend in Prague. The main areas of their interest
therefore lie within linguistics but they also spend a lot of time discussing football,
women and their hobbies. The scope of interests of the Czech characters on the other
hand is much more existential. Stoppard again very ingeniously manages to write a play
about genuine characters who discuss all sorts of matters and then, they somehow
become entangled in deeper political issues.
The freedom of speech is also one of the themes in the play Night and Day which
is a play from an absolutely distant environment yet it shares the common ground when
it comes to the question of the free speech. “For Stoppard, restricting free speech is the
source of virtually all injustice, a point that surfaces most directly but far from
exclusively in Night and Day which is aStoppard‟s play about journalists” (Demastes
43).
Night and Day is another example of a realistic Stoppardian play. It takes place in
an inexistent African country (yet another example of Stoppard‟s experiments, even
within a realistic play, even though he might have chosen an imaginary country for
liability reasons) and it is majorly inspired by Stoppard‟s experience as a freelance
journalist. Journalism is therefore the major theme of this play. Once again, while the
plot is focused on couple of journalists with their different interests and career
motivations, the characters nevertheless peripherally touch the realm of political issues
where among others they discuss their opinions on the British Empire and colonialism
and quite significantly, the freedom of free speech.
However, even though Stoppard clearly intended to write a realistic play about
journalism and its moral issues, some of the Stoppardian feature also found their place
in the play. We have already mentioned the use of an imaginary African country as a
setting for the play. Then, in the beginning of the play, we witness almost a film-like
thriller of a scene which nevertheless proves to have been nothing but a dream. Another
interesting postmodern technique is the usage of a split character in which the main
female character Ruth oscillates between participation in dialogues and in her inner
monologue. This inner monologue comes to play mainly when the serious journalistbased plot digresses into a love affair and it clearly marks the play with an unusual
usage of a split character. We may thus observe that even a realistic play about
journalism may prove to become far more intriguing and to be tangling with other
significant aspects of life when handled by Stoppard.
Indian Ink is another play they fits into the title of this chapter and the setting for
this play was picked according to another of Stoppard‟s important life stage which was
his childhood spent in India. The political issues are also present just like in the plays
described above but only to a certain extent. Just like Stoppard‟s plays about the
uprising and downfall of the Czech communism, the political issues here are touched
only very subtly.
“A play like Indian Ink turns „political‟ when it becomes apparent that colonial
British freedoms come at the expense of native Indian rights” (Demastes 43). And those
are usually not directly spoken about, but typically merely hinted at. Here and there, we
may observe almost random remarks that become part of larger units of the dialogues,
in which the characters present their opinions and political observations. However, the
major plotline is again very distant from the remote political issues. It almost seems that
Stoppard is very fond of creating a story about regular people and then show how their
lives are remotely determined by history that is described only with an utmost subtlety.
In Indian Ink, Stoppard here uses one of his favourite techniques where the characters
set in the present endeavour to recreate the lives of the people in the past (quite similarly
to Arcadia).
While the past is being unravelled, a reader or a spectator begins to feel the
connection between historical events and the characters. Indian Inkdeals with
relationships and art, but also with colonialism, stereotypes of the British and the Indian
and their relationship. These characters live their own regular lives and Stoppard
manages to tell their story while using elaborate time jumps, overlaps and flashbacks.
Towards the end of this chapter it is certainly worth mentioning that while it is
very problematic to state anything about Stoppard‟s plays with an absolute certainty,
there nevertheless seems to be a pattern where Stoppard puts his version of realistic play
into the world of different countries while his absurd and experimental plays typically
take place in the UK.
In conclusion it is important to stress a general pattern when it comes to the plays
described in this chapter. Naturally, every single one is very different from the other yet
there is a common ground. Stoppard writes his realistic plays that touch the political
ground with the major focus on the characters. These characters have their own stories
and history. They talk about love, art, sports and also about politics. Politics constitute
an important part of these plays yet it is never presented openly an as a major part of the
plays. Stoppard does not write realistic plays about politics, he writes about people who
somehow get entangled by them and we get the sense that their lives might in fact to a
certain extent be governed by them. When speaking of Indian Ink, Demastes describes
this principle that nevertheless also applies to every other play also mentioned in this
chapter; “We are given rumours of Gandhi and various rising protests, but this is all
backdrop to what Stoppard does best, giving us two characters whose personal lives
both anticipate and parallel the large sweeps of history that surround them” (Demastes
99),
In the plays based on the themes of spies Stoppard likes to play with the idea of
double (sometimes even triple or quadruple agents). In The Dog It Was That Died
(1982) Stoppard introduces the life of a double agent and absurdity that constitutes his
life. The first farcical effect appears when the main character Purvis attempts to commit
a suicide in the beginning of the play by jumping off a bridge. Similarly to his futile life
in service his attempts winds up in vain as he lands on a dog that cushions the fall. This
is a favourite technique of Stoppard‟s where he integrates an event which is most
improbable yet nobody can deny its possibility. Thus a really improbable event may
happen within the realm of a realistic work of art.
While the attempted suicide undergoes investigation, Stoppard further unravels
his favourite topic of agents and their struggle with reality. As Purvis constantly gets
overwhelmed by information and briefings both from the English and the Russians, he
loses any last ability to determine what is true and what is not. In Hapgood the theme is
reinstalled and pushed even further and Stoppard brings the subject of science to
complicate the matters.
Furthermore, while doing all of the above, Stoppard never forgets to add a little
twist to the play, be it usage of flashbacks, dreams or any other postmodern (or let us
say Stoppardian) technique imaginable. And he never fails to entertain the audience.
Analysing the overwhelming world of Tom Stoppard‟s themes is a task that can
be grasped from numerous angles and at the same time it is something which is very
hard to do especially given the ambiguity and overall sense of confusion that we
experience when seeing or reading a Stoppard‟s play. For practical purposes this thesis
shall by no means endeavour to do something as foolish as analysing all of the
characters from all the plays. Not only would that be excessively difficult but more
probably very dull. The aim of this practical part will therefore be of a broader attitude.
The comical effect of Stoppard‟s play is achieved by a synergy of innovative
settings, postmodern approaches of writing. All of that is augmented by the overall
composition of the plays (such as time jumps etc.), absurd and idiosyncratic characters
and Stoppard‟s brilliant creativity and sense of humour. We have already very briefly
covered the vast area of themes, various settings and postmodern features in Stoppard‟s
typical style, but the characters very mostly left out up till now.
This thesis will work with several basic categories of the characters that shall be
provided below. It is important to note that this division was created by the author of
this thesis and it is self-evident that the division may not contain the totality of all
Stoppard‟s characters and the categories frequently overlap each other. Every single
character of course shows his idiosyncratic features and is a unique character of his
own, there are nevertheless certain types of characters that Stoppard prefers to employ
in his plays. The important angle to this thesis is that it focuses on how Stoppard
employs these types of characters, what purpose they are looking for and how they
interact and how this fusion creates the unique comical style of Stoppard‟s plays.
2.2.2. Plays based on metafiction and intertextuality
Probably the most well-known and intriguing characters from Tom Stoppard‟s
rich arsenal are those that he based on borrowings from various sources. As we
mentioned elsewhere, these characters range from real historical personas to fictional
characters, invented by different authors. Stoppard never hesitated to use a character
that is not exclusively his own. He explained the reasoning: “I have enormous difficulty
in working out plots, so actually to use Hamlet, or a classical whodunit, or another play
(which I‟m afraid I‟ve just done again [in Travesties] for a basic structure, takes a lot of
pressure off me” (Demastes 65).
This postmodern tendency proved to achieve high merits as it is always intriguing
to see how an author handles a character that has already been used before. People then
tend to observe whether the character undergoes any considerable changes when faced
with a different literary environment or if he remains more or less the same. This
chapter along with the characters‟ analysis endeavours to also answer this question.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Almost iconical and the most renowned usage of intertextuality can be found in
Stoppard‟s best known play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It is a play that
adapts Shakespeare‟s Hamlet. Stoppard gives the original play an innovative twist in
which he takes two peripheral roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and turns them
into two main protagonists of his play. And vice versa, Hamlet and other protagonists of
Hamlet become peripheral characters of Stoppard‟s play.
The major storyline is not altered, however. We bear witness to Hamlet who is
endeavouring to use actors to find a proof of his father‟s murder, he also kills Polonius
and in the end he is sent on a journey along with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. We
have also shown earlier that the language of the Elizabethans does not change either,
even though that is true only to a certain extent. We have already mentioned that
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern use two different registers depending on whether they
talk to each other (and Tragedians) or to the other Elizabethans. In the latter case they
will use the language of Shakespeare, in the previous the language of Stoppard.
In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead the original Elizabethans pursue their
own original storyline from Hamlet while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are wandering
around consumed in their dialogue and occasionally witness scenes from Hamlet. At
times, they come into contact with the other characters as well.When the Elizabethans
actually get their new lines, they are typically very similar to the style of their former
version. Stoppard therefore does not try to change the original characters. He may give
them his very own lines from time to time, yet they maintain their main features and
patterns of behaviour.
However, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and the Tragedians the case is
different. One significant change that occurs is the switch of the language which is
much more modern than Shakespeare‟s. On the other hand, it can be said that even
though Stoppard might have changed these characters in certain ways, there has never
been much known about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (and Tragedians for that matter).
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern even spend considerable amount of their dialogue
pondering the question of purpose. It is almost as if Stoppard himself suggested that
nobody knows why it was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who escort Hamlet. This
errand might have been carried out by anybody and even the two protagonists are aware
of the dubious character of their mission. Yet, the fact that there is little known about
these characters from Hamlet remains valid. If we were to consider these characters real
for a minute (that is to say that they existed even outside the boundaries of the script),
who knows what dialogues and actions were they engaging in.
Stoppard therefore does not altogether change these characters per se, he merely
explores them. Once again, Stoppard plays with the idea of probability and odds. It is in
a way foreshadowed in the famous coin tossing scenes where it is almost impossible to
get heads 90 times in a row, yet such occurrence might happen, the odds are there. The
same approach Stoppard utilises when he borrows his intertextual characters. Whatever
happens in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, especially concerning the
protagonists and the Tragedians, might very well happened in outside the play in
Hamlet. Perhaps even Shakespeare would have agreed that that is what these characters
could be about. The crucial point dwells in the process of exploration. And arguably by
exploring the characters Stoppard does not commit any travesties which he certainly
does in his next play.
By using these characters Stoppard analyses his favourite topic – probability.
Probability that governs this universe (a similar theme - the chaos theory is thoroughly
analysed in Arcadia) is something that Stoppard likes his characters to discuss and
question. At the same time, they also exist only by virtue of possibility.
1.
Guil: A weaker man might be moved to re examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in
the law of probability (Stoppard, Ros 8).
Just like any other experiment that Stoppard conducts in his play his intertextual
characters show how far can reality and fiction be pushed and indeed he enjoys going
far.
Travesties
Travesties is a play that revolves around possibility and reliability. Stoppard
chooses several real personas from history to meet in the play and discuss matters
ranging from art over history to marriages. Stoppard namely borrows Tristan Tzara,
James Joyce and Lenin (and his wife). In the introduction of the play we also find out
that the unreliable narrator Henry Carr who we already spoke about was also taken from
history, even though nobody has probably ever heard of him. The play takes place in
Zurich and the central idea is that all of the above were in fact present in Zurich in the
same time and therefore could have met (which they did not and neither were they
aware of each other). Stoppard however does not get distracted by whatever did or did
not happen and presents his own version of these remarkable Zurich encounters full of
rivalries.
The play begins with a scene in a library where all the protagonists are seemingly
speaking gibberish. Later it turns out that the only one speaking gibberish was actually
Tzara when he was trying to write a poem using his innovative and rather questionable
Dadaistic style. Joyce was simply dictating his masterpiece Ulysses to his secretary and
Lenin was consumed by similar writing matters, only in Russian. After this short scene
we notice Henry Carr, the narrator, who starts telling the story of the play. What
actually all the three historical personas have in common is the fact that there are in fact
writing his renowned pieces in the same library.
Stoppard obviously changes the personas according to his own whims. As the title
suggests multiple travesties will take place and Stoppard deliberately parodies all of the
characters and their artistic efforts. It is important to note that Stoppard bases their
characters on the artistic persuasions that they were famous for. Stoppard simply
presumes that both Tzara and Joyce would inevitably find themselves in opposing
positions due to the nature of their artistic views. Therefore their dialogue exchanges are
often of a confronting character. Also, Henry Carr finds himself in a conflict with Joyce
because apparently they ended up settling their affairs in a courtroom in their real life.
Therefore we may observe a certain degree of bitterness in Carr‟s story. That is
nevertheless happening only until his befuddled memory begins to deceive him later on
in the play.
Even though the actual Carr was of no real historical significance, he definitely
thinks otherwise in the play. His self-image is adjusted from the point of a person who
is talking about his own life and obviously strives to appear in the brightest of lights.
Stoppard here uses his fallible memory to show that whatever is said in the play is in
fact a result of Carr‟s questionable memory and is to be perceived as such.
The images of the protagonist are not without interest either. In the beginning, as
Carr apparently intends to exercise some sort of vengeance over Joyce through his
memoires, “Joyce is portrayed as a poorly dressed, stereotypically penny-pinching Irish
tightwad who speaks in limericks (even though he is from Dublin)” (Demastes 69).
Later on he is even called a supercilious streak of Irish puke through the words of Tzara,
respectively Carr.
Tzara on the other hand is first described as a certain spy, or at least as someone
who is pretending to be a spy. Stoppard cleverly shows that someone who encounters a
French speaking Romanian with a monocle in Zurich 1917 could reach such an
assumption. Later on he is portrayed as an eccentric artist who spits on all art of his
ancestors and as someone who seeks to stomp all the conventions in art. He is also
someone who does not go far for swears as he keeps insulting almost every other
character in a very rash and impulsive manner. His art and character then undergoes
constant questioning and scrutiny and towards the end of play he is treated with similar
respect as Joyce was. In his last line of the first act, Joyce suggests to Tzara that he
should first acquire some genius before he endeavours to create art.
Stoppard is always keen on portraying artists and he frequently has them speak of
his views on life and art. Only this time he borrows real artists to utilize his words. In a
line in which Carr‟s memory unintentionally defends his foe Joyce who says: (using the
words of Stoppard)
Joyce: An artist is the magician put among men to gratify –
capriciously – their urge for immortality. The temples are built
and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously,
from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any
of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of
tyrants, yes even in the celebrations of nonentities. What now of
the Trojan Wars if it had been passed over by the artist‟s touch?
Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants
looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots
(Stoppard, Travesties 41 -42).
Demastes argues that this Stoppardian view on art in fact opposes Tzara and refers
to the broken pots that represent his pseudo-art of cutting Shakespearean sonnets.
Naturally, Tzara retorts in a similar fashion where he insults Joyce and defends
destruction of form and traditional art shortly before he starts frantically shouting dada.
The confrontation and electric dialogue between Tzara and Joyce is often
mitigated by frequent doses of Stoppardian humour. Even the omnipresent discussion
over art and artists that seems to be central to most Stoppard‟s plays he mitigates the
seriousness of it all by using the words of the narrator. When Carr talks to Bennett in
one of the cyclic scenes that imitate his fallible memory, Carr and Bennett speak of
Tzara. Judging by his background and appearance Carr first mistakes him for a spy.
Later on he completely turns and in the following exchange he defends Tzara as his
good friend. When Bennett brings up the fact that Tzara is an artist, Carr replies:
Carr: I will not have you passing moral judgements on my
friends. If Mr Tzara is an artist that is his misfortune (Stoppard,
Travesties 14).
This indicates that Stoppard‟s plays are supposed to always be taken light-hearted
and without any deep consequences even if a major conflict appears on the stage.
Lenin finds himself in a very different spot. First thing to point out would be that
he is arguably getting the least amount of space within the play. After following the
play‟s occurrences we find out that while the other protagonists seem to be consumed
by matters of art and life, Lenin‟s sole preoccupation lies within the struggle of the
working class and the revolution. His lines are adjusted to this conception. “Lenin is
pointedly not an artist; his single-minded dedication to revolution translates stylistically
as conversationally „artless‟ and unfinished prose” (Kelly 105). Carr also produces his
very own description of Lenin.
Carr: To be in his presence was to be aware of a complex
personality,
enigmatic,
magnetic,
and
yet
an
intellectual
theoretician, bent, as I was already aware, on the seemingly
impossible task of reshaping
federation
of
standing
the civilised world into
committees
of
workers‟
a
deputies.
(Stoppard,Travesties 7).
As we find out in the second act, there is truly nothing artistic about the character
of Lenin and he rarely enters the dialogues. He is mostly only referred to by his admirer
Cecily and his wife Nadya. Nadya is actually quoting her book Memories of Lenin and
whenever Lenin actually enters dialogue it is mostly in the form of reading his very
matter-of-fact letters from his Collected Writings. Lenin nevertheless eventually touches
the subject of art. And since it is Lenin he pragmatically expresses his desire that art
must serve political serves first and appeal to minds second. The conclusion towards
Stoppard‟s Lenin is that whereas Tzara and Joyce have indeed become fictional
characters Lenin did not. The effect of this causes the spectators feel that while they
may heartily laugh at the exchanges of Tzara and Joyce, Lenin somehow stands aside
with his sober and straightforward manner. Perhaps Stoppard strived to create such
discrepancy among these characters to enhance the comical effects of the play.
Judging from the findings of this analysis it may seem that Stoppard indeed
committed a series of travesties when handling these historical personas yet he used
their already known peculiarities and idiosyncrasies to create the most entertaining play
by numerous merits. Even though their real personalities might have been significantly
altered, everything that is written in the play is justifiable by Carr‟s fallible memory.
The play is not about the real Joyce, Tzara and Lenin, not even about Carr‟s for that
matter. It shows how an old man might perceive his past life and encounters with these
famous personas. By the means of his unreliable memory his views might actually be
perceived as understandable if not valid. The characters might share very little with their
originals yet they are creations of Stoppard who uses them to create numerous farcical
and possible historical situations and at the same time he manages to squeeze in several
of his views on art and life. And most importantly, he uses metafiction and
intertextuality to achieve brilliance when it comes to humour. That is especially true
with Travesties as it one of the best Stoppard‟s plays when it comes to humour.
2.2.3. Plays about art and artists
Probably the most recurring theme and object of discussion in Stoppard‟s plays is
art and therefore numerous characters are artists. Some of them tend to be rather
eccentric and almost crackpot and some of them were even real artists in their real life
as we have seen on the example of Travesties in the previous chapter. Other characters
then endeavour to explain matters of life by crossing artistic and scientific approaches.
Throughout the plays we come across painters, philosophers, writers, actors,
playwrights and scholars. And in a good number of plays not only do these artist are the
protagonists of the plays but art as such is the major theme of them. Stoppard frequently
uses these characters to express his own views on art and his convictions. Frequently we
therefore cannot be sure whether a view of a character is really Stoppard‟s or just of the
character. Stoppard uses many of his play to express his opinions as to what is art what
purpose it should serve.
We have already mentioned that art is a major theme of Travesties as the
protagonists are famous artists. Stoppard here creates the foundation of the verbal
combat by putting the opposing characters of Tzara and Joyce on stage. Their exchange
is full of stereotypical statements where Tzara defends the destruction of current art and
Joyce glorifies the art as something only the gifted are capable of. Thus he mocks
Tzara‟s random scissor method. Stoppard here speaks mostly through Joyce‟s speech
yet he does not hesitate to provide Tzara with valid arguments as well. “Stoppard has on
several occasions confessed to being inclined toward Joyce in the debate that rages in
Travesties, observing, „Temperamentally and intellectually, I‟m very much on Joyce‟s
side.‟ But then he also observes, „I found it persuasive to write Tzara‟s speech.‟”
(Demastes 36). Stoppard shows that he is capable of defending even political and
artistic views that are not in line with his very own persuasion. Therefore he manages to
provide the audience with a sense of a bright and equal verbal duel. He typically does
not resolve to mark the true victor and the true victim of the fight.
Another view on art in Travesties is present by Cecily, the ardent admirer of
Lenin‟s, who claims that “the sole duty and justification of art is social criticism”
(Stoppard Travesties 49). Tzara claims that the purpose of art is destruction and
deconstruction while Joyce defends the current art and its ability to create something
beautiful. Eventually Stoppard uses his unsurpassable wit and tells us through Carr‟s
mouth that art is not only absurdly overrated by artists but also by everyone else. We are
given many different and often contradictory views on art that is gets very problematic
to analyse which ones are Stoppard‟s.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern discuss the purpose of art when they come into
interaction with Tragedians. When pondering what they seek from art or from a play,
Rosencrantz simply suggests that he wants something simple, with a beginning, middle
and end. Guildenstern adds that a simple mirror of life would suffice. Since Stoppard
rarely provides us with a mirror of life (or at least not ordinary life as we know it), the
reply that Player gives to them is very contradictory when he claims that real life is
completely unconvincing on stage. Therefore he implies that what the audience seeks is
exaggeration and not in the least the imitation of the real life. Kelly comments that
“Stoppard‟s own procedures suggest that neither view alone is correct, but that together
they describe how art can work at its most powerful. Art must both copy and distort its
models if it is to have any effect at all” (Kelly 82). Stoppard in his play strives to find
the limits and push them as far as he can and he does so with art as well. Only by doing
so he manages to show what various purposes can art serve and he leaves it to the
spectator to create his or her own image.
Another character in Artist Descending a Staircase who is a sculptor also seeks to
discover the purpose of art and comes to the conclusion that art should primarily be
useful in our everyday life. Therefore he comes up with a bright solution and resolves to
create edible statues. Once again Stoppard shows the extremity that creates such an
enormous space both for humour and contemplation.
Even though Stoppard is able to convey multiple views on art and its role in life
some of the approaches that he puts into his plays seem to be recurring and those
probably truly represent his very own perception of art in our life. When speaking of
what art really is, one line curiously enough appears both in Artist Descending a
Staircase and in Travesties. The painter Donner expresses his opinion on art as follows:
“An artist if someone who is gifted in some way which enables him to do something
more or less well which can only be done badly or not at all by someone who is not thus
gifted. To speak of an art which requires no gift is a contradiction employed by people
like yourself who have an artistic bent but no particular skill … Skill without
imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork
picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art” (Stoppard Artist 21). The
first part of the line is also a part of a Carr‟s line in Travesties who responds to Tzara
and his perspective towards art. By using the same line twice in his plays Stoppard
shows that he indeed puts an emphasis on this point. It seems that it is a point upon
which he agrees with his characters. A similar notion is shared by the main character
Henry in the play The Real Thing who considers himself a creative playwright who
scorns the art of the ungifted.
It is interesting to observe that all these characters have something in common.
All of them glorify art as something special that the gifted produce in order to create
something extraordinary. All of them also value talent and the artistic value of the objet
d‟art. Then, they are also placed into scenes with other artist with utterly opposing
approaches towards art. The painter Donner in Artist Descending a Staircase criticises
his old friend Beauchamp for his mechanistic approach to art. He considers his work
with tapes and record mere crafting not creating a piece of art. In the same manner
Henry from The Real Thing considers himself a true playwright who creates legitimate
and deep plays whereas others such as his arch-enemy Brodie represent antiintellectualism that Henry despises. In Travesties Joyce ridicules Tzara for his random
and absolutely unartistic approach towards art. Even though Stoppard produces valid
and legitimate arguments for both sides, somehow we may feel that Stoppard‟s
persuasion probably leans towards the artists represented by Donner, Henry and Joyce.
His art is certainly everything but monotonous and mechanic which would be something
that these characters would refuse to accept.
2.2.4. A play about philosophers and their search for purpose
Apart from artists, Stoppard frequently creates characters that are deep thinkers
who are endeavouring to find their place in life answering philosophical questions
regarding purpose. Probably the first real philosopher appearing in Stoppard‟s plays is
Albert in Albert’s Bridge (1969). Albert is a man with a degree from philosophy yet,
pursuing his own approach towards life and philosophy, he abandons philosophy and
chooses to become a painter of a bridge where he spends most of his time instead. At
the same time, he neglects everything else in his life including his family. He chooses to
do so according to his own words: “No. It‟s the work, the whole thing – crawling round
that great basket, so high up, being responsible for so much that is so visible. Actually I
don‟t know if that‟s why I like it. I like it because I was happy up there, doing
something simple but so grand, without end. It doesn‟t get away from you” (Stoppard
Albert 18). His speech is commented on with the typical Stoppardian wit where his boss
tells him that he should have known it was a job for a university man.
Stoppard depicts a picture of a man who finds his life purpose in solitude where
he can pursue his thoughts. He strives to do perpetual work because of the fact that it is
perpetual, that it never ends. Stoppard puts this idealist of a man in contrast with sober
bureaucrats from the company that takes care of the bridge. Even his fellow workers
decline his job because they just would not be able to survive such solitude up there.
Albert nevertheless seeks it. However, his idyll is bound to cease as the bridge gets
crowded towards the end of the play. The bridge can no longer hold so many people and
neither can Albert. The end of the play shows that their demise is connected. In a way,
Albert represents a type of a character that Stoppard likes to depict. A wanderer who
seeks to find his purpose in the world that he does not feel he belongs to. Unlike pure
plays of the theatre of the absurd he nevertheless manages to eventually find it, even if
only for a brief period of time.
Probably the most significant Stoppard‟s masterpiece on the theme of philosophy
(among other themes) can be found in his play Jumpers. The play itself is one of the
more experimental and complicated plays that Stoppard created but one of the major
themes in it is definitely philosophy. “Jumpers questions the significance of modern
British philosophy (logical positivism) and technology (the moon landing)” (Kelly 96).
Following the event of the moon landing, one of the protagonists Dotty finds herself
deeply disturbed by the event. The reason for her disturbance lies within the loss of
excitement it presents. The Moon used to be unreachable but now it seems as if the
whole meaning of life collapsed when men started to walk on it.
Her character is in a deep contrast to her husband George who is an academic
philosopher, who seems completely oblivious to her problems and is fully consumed by
preparation for his lecture on philosophy and God on the topic „Man – good, bad, or
indifferent‟? George understands all these human qualities as objective which an
assumption that is almost impossible to prove as we find out later on. His academical
foe Duncan McFee on the other hand defends the idea that all these values are subject to
individual taste, therefore expressing his ethical relativism in contrast to George‟s
idealism.
While murders, investigations and possibly adultery happen in his house, he
nevertheless maintains his absorption with the topic. In the course of the play we find
out what his crucial dilemma presents when he is dictating to his secretary.
George: How does one know what it is one believes w hen
it‟s so difficult to know what it is one knows. I don‟t claim to
know that God exists, I only claim that he does without my
knowing it, and while I claim as much I do not claim to know as
much; indeed I cannot know and God knows I cannot. (pause)
And yet I tell you that, now and again, not necessarily in the
contemplation of rainbows…but…ambushed by some quite trivial
moment…then I tell you I know – I sound like a joke vicar, new
paragraph (Stoppard, Jumpers 62).
The clash of idealist philosophy represented by George and positivist philosophy
represented by everyone else then unfolds. “Troubled by the imprecision of feelings and
emotions, the positivists argued that facts alone populate the knowable world. From this
declaration, it follows that anything failing to be concretely material is presumed simply
not to exist. God and morality get caught up in this grand sweep of ontology, along with
so much more” (Demastes 66) George is thus put into a very difficult and awkward
position with the impending symposium where he is supposed to defend his findings.
While George finds himself in tautological loops when it comes to his search for the
evidence of God‟s existence, Stoppard admits that he relates to George in a reserved
manner. “I‟ve always thought the idea of God is absolutely preposterous but slightly
more plausible that the alternative proposition that give enough time, some green slime
could write Shakespeare‟s sonnets” (Demastes 67). That is why Stoppard writes the
play in way in which we cannot help ourselves but to sympathize with George. His
honourable and idealist views are constantly being devaluated by his colleagues (that
represent positivists of the 20th century) and also by his wife. Besides, his character is
also depicted as being kind of clumsy and distracted, but in a light-hearted way.
Stoppard sympathizes with George even if perhaps are views are not based on cruel
facts, but he does not approve of the cruel world of facts proclaimed by the positivist.
How the world actually works is another passion of Stoppard‟s and will be briefly dealt
with in the following chapter
Elsewhere George introduces another aspect of his personality which is when he
strives to prove the wrongness of Zeno‟s paradoxes that ancient Greek philosopher Zeno
postulated in an effort to show that motion is non-existent. Stoppard here debates
preposterously far can positivist deduction go. Once again he keenly pushes the subject
matter towards its very limits in order to test them. George here proves to be a
practically oriented person when he simply decides to shoot an arrow to illustrate the
folly of these characters. Stoppard does not hesitate to lighten up the matters when by
virtue of his wife‟s scream George misfires and by usage of an arrow and its motion that
truly exists he kills a rabbit.
George also shares a similar characteristic with Albert from Albert’s Bridge.
While both are notably moralistic persons with no apparent malignancy, they
nevertheless fail in an important area of life. Due to the fact that they both completely
absorb themselves in their ponderings and philosophy they also fail to function in their
everyday life, especially when it comes to their wives. Both George and Albert seem to
be oblivious to whatever their wives are going through and do not respond to their
predicaments. When they are faced with a choice they selfishly choose their own pursuit
over their wives. Perhaps not even selfishly, they simply do not understand what is
required of them. It is not without surprise that this theme of being alienated one‟s
closest environment reappears throughout Stoppard‟s work.
Once again his main character somehow stands alone in this world and does not
achieve the recognition he is seeking. Stoppard realizes the futility of George‟s
endeavours and impossibility to reach a final answer. Eventually we find out that
Stoppard draws the final conclusion when “he closes the play by suggesting that
George, at least, has failed in that struggle not only because he could not find the words
but also because he made his search of them its own justification” (Kelly 104).
2.2.5. Plays that focus on how the world works
Science, search for order and its role in this world is another vast area that
Stoppard‟s characters explore in numerous plays. In Albert’s Bridge we talked about
Albert who seeks solitude and perpetual Sisyphus like work to fulfil his life. His lone
companion Fraser faces a different difficulty. He keeps ascending the bridge in order to
jump off. However, every time he reaches its height he realizes that from up there, the
world seems to finally make sense and look orderly. “I look down at it all and find that
the proportions have been re-established. My confidence is restored, by perspective”
(Stoppard Albert 39). Similarly to many Stoppard‟s characters Fraser is unable to find
order and sense in this world whenever feels overwhelmed by its seemingly chaotic
omnipresence. He seeks to find an escape and when he does he realizes that order might
be found after all.
Other characters like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern express their apprehension
when the laws of probability seemingly cease to exist in their famous coin tossing first
scene.
Finding order in this world is a major theme in Stoppard‟s famous play that is
split into two time periods and one house and it is called Arcadia. So far Arcadia has
been only analysed as regards to the temporal jumps that Stoppard chose to employ for
this play. Perhaps even more fascinating part of the play is the views on this world that
we may discover in the play. Thomasina is a bright young girl who is being educated by
her tutor Septimus. While their dialogue consists of numerous topics that are
accompanied by typical Stoppardian humour mostly based on language plays, an
important part of the dialogue is constituted by Thomasina‟s bright inquiries about how
this world works.
The major part of the play‟s scientific analysis unveils with the chaos theory.
Thomasina first asks whether god is Newtonian and then persists that if somebody
would be perfect in algebra he or she would be able to foresee the future as everything
is bound to follow some sort of equation. Newton here represents determinism as we
know from the scientific tradition. Thomasina is determined to discover universal
equations that would predict the future based on the current stable state of atoms.
Another important character in the play is Valentine who helps to analyse books
and documents regarding whatever Thomasina came up with a century prior to their
time. He confirms her findings and introduces the chaos theory. Valentine claims that
Newton‟s physics and predictions solely apply to large objects like the universe, and
small objects such as elementary particles. “We‟re better at predicting events at the edge
of the galaxy or inside the nucleus of an atom than whether it‟ll rain on auntie‟s garden
party three Sundays from now. Because the problem turns out to be different. We can‟t
even predict the next drip from a dripping tap when it gets irregular. Each drip sets up
the conditions for the next, the smallest variation blows prediction apart, and the
weather is unpredictable the same way, will always be unpredictable” (Stoppard,
Arcadia 48). Stoppard illustrates the discrepancy between the 19th and 20th century
physics approaches.
Thomasina already begins to question Newton‟s laws and discovers their
incompleteness. Her tutor Septimus instructs her that her research is essentially bound
to fail as the equations she is looking for are only solvable by God. In retort she shows
her bright and youthful spirit and insists that she must start from the very beginning.
”What a faint heart. We must work outward from the middle of the maze. We will start
with something simple. (She picks up the apple leaf.) I will plot this leaf and deduce its
equation. You will be famous for being my tutor when Lord Byron is dead and
forgotten” (Stoppard, Arcadia 37). Thomasina represents the spirit of the end of the 19th
century that questions the old order in search of a new one. Newton explains only
certain orderly aspects of this world and what is random is unnatural
Here Valentine and his 20th century approach steps in. On the examples of
unpredictability he introduces the chaos theory in which he claims that even though
there are natural laws that are valid, yet the element of chance is present as well.
Therefore even the world exists based on physical rules, yet the unpredictability of
natural events, the butterfly effect, applies as well.
Stoppard basically uses Arcadia to present one of the approaches to this world
that he has always been curios and passionate about. He uses his characters to symbolise
different views and the classical human axiom which is the philosophical search for
how the world works. Stoppard clearly finds Newton‟s determinism inadequate and
through Thomasina and Valentine he endeavours to explore other possibilities.
Possibilities, chance and probability again appear in a Stoppard‟s play to constitute the
major part the characters‟ interests and fields of study.
Stoppard admits that he finds himself in constant search for the order in this world
and how exactly does the world work. He frequently does so by exploring the extreme
possibilities in his plays, as we have already mentioned before. We can identify his
passion for the matters of this world in this following statement of his. “They found
traces of amino acid in volcanic rock – the beginnings of life. Now a straight line of
evolution from amino acid in volcanic rock all the way through to Shakespeare‟s
sonnets – that strikes me as possible, but a very long shot. Why back such an outsider?
However preposterous the idea of God is, it seems to have an edge in plausibility”
(Demastes 26). Stoppard here shows that while he does not altogether dismiss any
possible scientific, philosophic or theistic explanation of how this world works, he
nevertheless admits that some seem more far-fetched than other and at the same time
there can be some truth in all of them. Therefore his plays sparkle with bright
intellectual dialogues and innovative approaches to the subject matter.
2.2.6. Ordinary characters in extraordinary situations
In Tom Stoppard‟s play there is indisputably an abundance of renowned
characters determined to discuss the vast areas of art, philosophy, science and literature.
They seek to find the meaning of life, the purpose of their journey or simply to find their
place in this world. These characters have for the most part been analyses and they can
be found in virtually all the major plays by Stoppard.
Nonetheless there still remains another vast area of rather different characters.
This area is inhabited by characters that probably did not reach such fame as
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern did, yet their stories are fascinating to follow in
nevertheless. These characters are taken from shorter plays that are probably the closest
to the tradition of the theatre of the absurd. We may include most of his radio plays into
this category. Stoppard depicts these characters as people who should very well live
their ordinary lives, yet their eccentricity prevents them from doing so. While their story
unravels they face many comical and farcical situations that they are unable to
comprehend and resolve. What is central to these play is that they are typically very
innovative (even though that may apply to almost all of Stoppard‟s plays) and they
usually lack the deep intellectual dialogues of plays like Arcadia, Travesties,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and so on.
Enter a Free Man
The first example of such ordinary character could be found in the first Stoppard‟s
successful play called Enter a Free Man. This play is a remarkable example of
Stoppard‟s exploration of self-deception and delusion. The play is centred on a modern
British family and while it depicts the eccentricity of the man of the house, it also shows
the problems of a modern lower-middle class family. A remotely similar theme can be
found in The Real Thing, Stoppard‟s only other play that deals with the subject of
family. The family lives on the wages of the mother and the daughter that have no
choice but to support the father of the family.
The first them that we can follow in the play is George‟s personality. He is the
predecessor of future Stoppardian artist characters. He is a crackpot scientist who
invents the least useful items such as indoor rain and reusable envelopes. Even though
his life conditions are almost dire, he is unable to see them. His mind is dazed by his
own genius (even though he is the only one who thinks so). His character is split into
two throughout the play. At home he is a failed inventor constantly challenged by his
revolting daughter who has to support her father. His wife tolerates her husband‟s
eccentricity and as a dedicated wife she believes in her husband despite his series of
failures. The other world George exists in is a pub where his character undergoes
significant changes. There he becomes someone, he becomes boastful and confident. He
fails to notice that he is only getting deceived and laughed at by his companions, who
only take him as a source of amusement.
This first major storyline shows a Stoppardian artist who knows what his purpose
is and is determined to achieve success, yet his limited abilities prevent him from doing
so. He is another Sisyphus who nevertheless does not struggle with others but with
himself. His delusions concern his family yet he fails to admit that there is a problem
since he believes in his powers. His speeches in the bar are a great source of amusement
for the audience and there is no choice but to sympathise with George. The pub play of
the part is full of Stoppardian dialogues full of humour, language plays and
misunderstandings.
The other storyline to follow in the play is the life of the family. As we have
already mentioned the wife is portrayed as a supporting wife in good and in bad, while
their daughter fantasises about leaving the forsaken house with a saviour. She constantly
argues with her parents and threatens to leave the house. A similar family situation with
a revolting daughter and crackpot father can be found in an N.F. Simpson‟s play One
Way Pendulum (1959). While the family struggles and faces humiliation repeatedly
(especially after George gets deceived, this time by somebody else), Stoppard
nevertheless decides to save the family and by the power of support they eventually
maintain unity.
The Dissolution of Dominic Boot (1964)
Stoppard‟s first short play for the radio is a comical portrait of a man enters a
vicious circle of debts that he is unable to escape. As it is a very short play focused only
on one character Dominic, there are not many themes to analyse, yet it proves to be a
brisk and entertaining play with a very high pace. Its only theme is the frantic journey of
a man in a taxi who has no money to pay for his fare. Stoppard illuminates an absurd
journey of a man who travels from bank to bank, collects debts from friends and
borrows money from his family only to pay for his fare that augments with every
additional journey. He does so in a vain attempt to hide his poverty but he is only on his
way to a certain downfall.
Dominic is a man who Stoppard depicts a farcical situation of a man who got
himself into trouble and just like an incurable gambler sees the only solution in raising
the stakes, Dominic heads towards his dissolution in the taxi. Stoppard follows the
tradition of the theatre of the absurd by placing his character into a regular situation
which he is nevertheless unable to solve like an ordinary person probably would without
difficulties.
M Is for Moon Among Other Things (1964)
M Is for Moon Among Other Things is another short radio play that illustrates
despair of its characters in a different manner. Its only two characters are a middle-aged
married and childless couple Alfred and Constance. Constance is a very mechanic and
unimaginative woman whose life is largely determined by her enthusiastic occupation
with encyclopaedias. She marks her life according to precise time and she does so
almost with an obsessive compulsion. Her husband Alfred is a simple man who day
dreams about luxurious life and women, particularly Marilyn Monroe who is reported
dead in the play. Constance does not fail to notice the precise date of the misfortunate
event
Stoppard in this light-hearted play shows misunderstandings of a middle-aged
couple. They both alternate between their inner and outer monologues. This very short
play is also close to the theatre of the absurd. There is virtually no plot, just a
conversation between the couple alternating with their inner monologues. The dialogue
shows the differences between the two characters are their inability to understand each
other despite their marriage.
If You’re GladI’ll Be Frank
Another radio play that shows a futile search is If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank. The
idea for this play was based on the TIM clock, which mechanically tells the precise time
upon calling. This ingenious play again focuses on a married couple Gladys and Frank.
This play “began with an instant idea: revealing the person behind the apparently
mechanical TIM voice. Frank‟s function in the plot will consist of his fruitless attempts
to find and rescue Gladys inside the post office building where she has been literally
entrapped as the speaking clock” (Kelly 33). Gladys therefore substitutes the seemingly
mechanical clock and during the course of time we find out that she in fact is trapped in
the building she will not be released from her duty.
Frank who is a bus driver recognizes her voice when he calls TIM and from that
point on strives on to find her. His efforts nevertheless constantly wind up in vain due to
his busy schedule of a bus driver. In the meantime, we find out that Gladys has two
voices. First she has her outer voice that exclusively tells the precise time. As Stoppard
mentioned, it is hard to imagine that the voice could actually belong to a person. Gladys
also has her inner voice in which she expresses her feelings and hopes that Frank would
save her and bring her back to earth.
In all of the three radio plays from the earlier stage of Stoppard‟s life that we have
briefly analysed we may discover a recurring theme of mechanical reasoning. Dominic
seems to be almost a machine that is not capable of a rational and human solution to his
problem and his life seems to be controlled by the taxi meter. Constance is obsessed by
the order imposed by encyclopaedias and her life is controlled by her constant
awareness of the precise time. Gladys‟s situation is even worse. Her whole life is
dominated by the precise time that she is supposed to tell without a mistake because she
is told that otherwise the world would collapse. Her husband has a limited knowledge of
her situation yet he is bound by timetables of the bus company.
While other characters in Stoppard‟s major plays struggle in order to find an order
in this world, these smaller characters seem to be utterly dominated by it. Stoppard
illuminates their futile efforts to change this fact and accordingly they never manage to
lose the shackles of their obsession that seems to have complete power over them.
3. Conclusion
The purpose of this thesis was to analyse the key postmodern features in
Stoppard‟s play, his rich arsenal of characters and also the themes that bind the
characters with their plays. We have covered several postmodern approaches to art in
the theoretical find and then based on readings of particular parts identified some of
them in the play. Another area of this thesis was to analyse whether or not Stoppard is a
proper playwright of the theatre of the absurd. While a great number of his plays share
many feature with the theatre of the absurd (especially his early works as we noted in
this thesis), we have nevertheless proved that the struggle of his characters is often of a
different character as they are in constant search for something. Some of them search
for purpose and some of them look for a place in this world. Even though they rarely
achieve full satisfaction (as Stoppard rarely provides a clear cut ending), they are at
least on a path somewhere and their lives are typically not without a purpose.
Stoppard uses a great number of postmodern techniques, the most significant
being those that some split the play. Stoppard frequently uses temporal jumps,
flashbacks, dreams and illusions. While frequently we are aware of those since the
characters themselves somehow tell us, on other occasions it is fairly difficult to
differentiate between the real and the unreal. Stoppard deliberately confuses the
spectators and most importantly leaves out numerous facts in line with his persuasion
that people never know all the facts.
Stoppard‟s characters are very much differentiated yet we managed to discover
several patterns. In the last chapter we have shown that some of his characters mainly
from the beginning of his career are indeed somehow lost in this world and there are
dominated by their mechanical life. Other characters disapprove of given order of this
life and strive to find what order in fact constitutes this world. Obviously most of them
reach different conclusions while some of them to a certain extent agree.
Probably the largest denominator for Stoppard‟s character is art as a great number
of them are artists. Art represents a major part of their intellectual dialogues and they
seek what purpose it has in our lives. Different artistic approaches appear in Stoppard‟s
plays and their angles differ accordingly. While we may estimate what approaches
Stoppard favours he is nevertheless very flexible at the same time and manages even to
defend the opposing opinions.
Elsewhere Stoppard uses real characters from history and other literary works to
create his own ingenious play full of references and humour. While some of the
characters maintain their original characteristics, others undergo a significant alteration.
An important notion that has not been quite as frequently as others when it comes
to Tom Stoppard is that while his play are indeed complicated and full of confusion,
plays with language, intertextualities, artistic and philosophical discussions, Stoppard
nevertheless never forgets that the key feature of theatre is to entertain audience. Even
when seeing his most complicated plays we nevertheless always receive large doses of
Stoppardian humour that can hardly be compared to others.
4. Works Cited
Demastes, William. The Cambridge Introduction to Tom Stoppard.New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968
Hucheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism.London: Routledge, 1988
Kelly, Katherine. Tom Stoppard and the Craft of Comedy.Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, 1991
Stoppard, Tom. Albert’s Bridge. London: Faber and Faber, 1969
Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia. London: Faber and Faber, 1993
Stoppard, Tom. Artist Descending a Staircase. London: Faber and Faber, 1973
Stoppard, Tom. Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. London: Faber and Faber, 1978
Stoppard, Tom. Night and Day.London: Faber and Faber, 1978
Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. London: Faber and Faber,
1967
Stoppard, Tom. Travesties.New York: Grove Press, 1975
Stoppard, Tom. Where Are They Now? London: Faber and Faber, 1973
Other Used Sources
Stoppard, Tom. Dissolution of Dominic Boot.London: Faber and Faber, 1964
Stoppard, Tom. Enter a Free Man. London: Faber and Faber, 1968
Stoppard, Tom. If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank. London: Samuel French, 1969
Stoppard, Tom. Indian Ink. London: Faber and Faber, 1995
Stoppard, Tom. Jumpers. London: Faber and Faber, 1972
Stoppard, Tom. M Is For Moon Among Other Things. London: Faber and Faber, 1964
Stoppard, Tom. Professional Foul.London: Faber and Faber, 1978
Stoppard, Tom. Rock ‘n’ Roll. New York: Grove Press, 2006
Stoppard, Tom. The Invention of Love. London: Faber and Faber, 1997
Stoppard, Tom. The Real Inspector Hound.London: Faber and Faber, 1968
Příloha č. 2
Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Pedagogická fakulta
M.D. Rettigové 4, 116 39 Praha 1
Prohlášení žadatele o nahlédnutí do listinné podoby závěrečné práce
Evidenční list
Jsem si vědom/a, že závěrečná práce je autorským dílem a že informace získané nahlédnutím
do zveřejněné závěrečné práce nemohou být použity k výdělečným účelům, ani nemohou být
vydávány za studijní, vědeckou nebo jinou tvůrčí činnost jiné osoby než autora.
Byl/a jsem seznámen/a se skutečností, že si mohu pořizovat výpisy, opisy nebo rozmnoženiny
závěrečné práce, jsem však povinen/povinna s nimi nakládat jako s autorským dílem a zachovávat
pravidla uvedená v předchozím odstavci tohoto prohlášení.
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