24 Jul 2005
Is the contemporary transformation you have studied anything more than the shadow of the classic text on which it was based? 1019 words.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard’s transformation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a shadow of the original work from which it draws its inspiration, by design. Stoppard shifts focus in his 1967 appropriation of the original to highlight the minority roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in order to achieve his purpose, which should not at any time be considered analogous to that of Shakespeare in the original work.
Certainly, elements between plays are common, the most obvious being the characters used. Even this, however, is done in such a way that there is little common in the characterisation between texts: the characters in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are but a shadow of the shadow-characters in Hamlet. They are nothing more than a shadow of the original characters, for they are characters in their own right. Shakespeare renders a sketch of these figures sufficient to empower them as supporting figures only: they cannot exist in their own right, given the power balance in the play – namely, that royalty are depicted as a dominant force throughout the play and bear full responsibility for the chain of events leading to tragic demise as a result of upheaval of the imperturbable Elizabethan notion of a “Great Chain of Beingâ€.
For Stoppard, however, these two characters stand alone – though they exist primarily as a representation of the common man – they direct or, significantly, fail to direct the events that unfold in this play, simultaneously depicting the plight of Hamlet and those who hold power (the royalty of Hamlet) as something common to all people, whilst, through this, conveying the existentialist ideology that Stoppard proclaims.
Hamlet’s own uncertainty and farcical behaviour confers the point Stoppard attempts to make centuries later through his “shadow†of a text: his lack of control is manifest not only in Hamlet’s eventual demise, but also in his actions that lead to this and the clear instability of this character. It is possible to assert that Hamlet’s declaration “When the wind is southerly/I know a hawk from a handsaw†is a suggestion his madness is contrived, and yet, if this is so, his earlier questioning of the consequences of suicide are even more irrational. Indeed, the irrational behaviour of Shakespeare’s protagonist is a core element of both the original play and its subsequent transformation, though for completely different reasons.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet depicts a protagonist deeply affected by his father’s death, due to the disruption of the “natural order†of things. Conversely, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet is depicted as being in control, relatively empowered: “He murdered us!â€, Rosencrantz complains. This transformation is but a shadow of the original work, and, more than this, it is an unfaithful shadow. It does not even pretend to honour the sentiment put forth by Shakespeare, but blithely ignores his characterisation and thematic influence, with a shameless Stoppard instead appropriating (as in theft) the established elements of Shakespeare’s play to form his own corrupt shadow, or appropriation (as in transformation). When Hamlet is presented in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he is chiefly in a dominant role: there is, for example, no presentation of him deep in philosophical monologue of uncertainty that dominates much of Shakespeare’s original work; but Stoppard preserves Hamlet issuing instructions to the Players in his play-within-a-play act of satire against the establishment, as well as Hamlet unequivocally beating Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a conversation designed to solicit information: “Twenty-seven-three†being the final score.
Control is something neither Rosencrantz nor Guildenstern appear to have much of. They are depicted by Stoppard as being entrapped in this absurdist-reality drama, in which their fate is inexorably committed and unchangeable. Throughout the whole play, their dialogue is incessant and ultimately meaningless – In the last scene, an irate Guildenstern shouts at Rosencrantz: “Shut up! I’m sick of it! Do you think conversation is going to help us now?â€
Conversation, ironically, had never helped them: it merely served to aid them in their procrastination, which is itself another “shadow†of the original play retained by Stoppard in his contemporary work. The idea that they are waiting for the inevitable is delivered in fierce style by Guildenstern in the closing act, whose vicious declaration against the fallacies of the acting profession appears to be wholly in response to a melodramatic tradition – one comparatively common in Elizabethan theatre – and the idea that something must always happen. Even earlier in the play, when Guildenstern instructs Rosencrantz to “Tread warily, follow instructions†and Rosencrantz asks in response, “For how long?â€, Guildenstern’s answer to him is simply “Till events have played themselves out.â€
The pun inherent in “played†is clearly a critique of the values of theatrical tradition such as that respected and followed by Shakespeare’s Hamlet, especially when viewed in light of the sentences that follow: “There’s a logic at work – it’s all done for you, don’t worry. Enjoy it. Relax.†Guildenstern continues a while, before an ellipsis and the question “Do I contradict myself?†Yes, he does. Stoppard uses lines such as these to establish a connection between the tangible threads of the original work from which he delineates his “shadow†reflecting the influences of the culture and philosophy of his time.
Without a doubt, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is but a shadow of the original work composed by Shakespeare many centuries prior. Its setting in the wings of a canonical work such as Hamlet expose it to criticism, yet to view it as inferior is invalid. Whilst Rosencrantz and Guildenstern remains a shadow of the work upon which it builds, the view that it is “nothing more†than this is narrow-minded, and fails to recognise the ideological contributions that Stoppard has imparted upon the original text in adopting a view of the text through a twentieth-century mindset, and by the foregrounding of what were once minority characters.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fails to accurately represent Hamlet, with deliberate purpose in mind: The depiction of a new set of values and ideologies shaped by those of Stoppard’s contemporaries and popular thinking of that period, over those presented by Shakespeare through his original play, Hamlet.
24 Jul 2005
This is a post that I’ve been wanting to make for a while now, but haven’t, because the facts still weren’t clear and there’s a part of me that aspires to journalism beyond pure blogging.
July 23, 2005. “Bomb suspect shot dead on Tube”.
July 24, 2005. “Police gunned down innocent man”.
Notably, police did not gun down “Bomb suspect”. Shoot first, ask questions later. Okay, whatever. They screwed up, they’re only human. So why am I jumping up and down about it (value of human life aside — because we know thousands of people in non-Western countries are being killed everyday and no-one blinks)?
If nothing else, their reasoning. The apparent lack of recourse.
“For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets,” police said, acknowledging they had shot the wrong man.
They are now trying to get the body of murdered Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, back to his home land in accordance with the wishes of his family.
“The government expects the British authorities to explain the circumstances that led to this tragedy,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.
The Brazilian was “apparently the victim of a lamentable mistake”, the statement said.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim issued a statement in which he states his expectation the British authorites explain the events that unfolded. This is important: there has been no mention from the British of any further investigation or inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes.
The actual nature of the killing itself, however, is also in need of explanation. Police, apparently, assessed the risk and determined the actions that would result in the murder (I use that word unflinchingly, for that is what this is) of an innocent man. Let us pause to collect what we know of the situation, from the statements of eyewitnesses.
The police were in plain clothes. Other passengers on the train had absolutely no way of knowing with any degree of certainty that the men weilding guns were, in fact, members of the London Metropolitan Police Service. Without indulging in conspiracy theory, to this day the only way the public can “know” this is by the [later, rather delayed] statements of the police force itself: the actual killers could quite easily have been a covert British force that unseen agreements neccessitated the blame being placed upon the Metropolitan Police.
The “Metropolitan Police Service”, wearing plain clothes, weilding several “heavy”-looking handguns (according to eyewitness Mark Whitby), start chasing after this man.
If we cut through the ideological obfuscation about how “terrorism has no effects on the population” whatsoever and “insert name of attacked city here will be strong!” rhetoric, just for a second, it’s pretty self-evident that terrorism does have very real effects, manifest in (amongst other things) a prevailing sense of paranoia. Terror, conceptually, is based upon the irrational. You are not statistically likely to be killed in a public place in London, but the fear is there. Similarly, a man wearing a New York tee-shirt and a coat that “looked out of place in the hot humid weather” (also Mark Whitby) would not, without the context of previous days, be considered a suspect, chased into a train carriage in a public place, and shot in the head at close range five times.
Terrorism, clearly, does have effects. Ignore the population: it has effects upon rational government. It makes our leaders pass ineffective laws that hamper the population but do little to prevent terrorism. In Sydney, about a week ago, the media started issuing demands that “radical” books in Islamic bookshops be — and I quote — “burnt”.
I’m sorry, did I miss something? Why is an increasingly “liberal” Western population reverting to burning books? Whilst we’re at it, can we burn all the works of Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Marx, a host of other communist leaders, and, if we were to continue, the works of various French revolutionaries that would unequivocably be considered anti-establishment? Who cares what the establishment is — political violence is political violence, is it not?
Oh, no, apparently not. But everyone avert their heads from Vietnam and other instances of US-sanctioned political violence, just in case. That wasn’t about democracy, it was about stopping communism that had turned North Vietnam into an industrialised state with the fastest-growing economy in the region to which aid from Russia and China decreased whilst similar aid to South Vietnam increased and they became progressively more dependent upon the US.
But that was, of course, a huge digression that just threw me into a big pit full of Leftist writers. Ah, quick, let me out.
So let’s ignore the politics behind it for a second, and look at raw emotion. A man was shot in the head five times at close range on public transport. SOMEBODY, BLINK! I’m sure I’m missing something that makes all this perfectly fine — and don’t say prior acts of terrorism, because that’s been proven to be unconnected, remember? Terrorism has no effect on the population! Oh, what was that? I’m assuming imposed ideologies? Yeah, maybe.
Whilst I’m on this whole rant, I thought I’d mention tomorrow I’m going to blow up the Sydney Harbour Bridge…
…and the only reason I’m capable of doing this, is that I don’t yet have a national identity card to act as a restraining force upon me. I’m imagining they’d come out now, and the force it would have on me as I walked towards the center of the bridge wearing a large backpack… Oooh!!! It’s pulling me back!!! I can’t possibly detonate this bomb, because that would mean I’d destroy this beautiful work of holographic, biometric, forensic perfection! Oh, yeah, and they’d be able to identify me as the person who did it if it survived the blast. Because, seeing as I’m a suicide bomber, I do actually care a great deal about that.
To the Australian Government: whoever decides this is a good idea should be taken out on an excursion to Sydney’s public transport network. They should be pursued by people in plain clothes calling out to them to stop, weilding handguns. The public should obligingly step out of the way and accept this as normal. The member of the public service who is being pursued will trip, and fall to the floor in the doorway of a train carriage. They will cower, whilst three armed men come to the doorway of the train, and raise their guns in the air, pointing to the head of the person who is now powerless beneath them.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
The floor of the carriage is red. “Everybody, please leave the carriage. This person was a suspect.”
Twenty other — now uniformed — people come running.
Two days later, a statement is issued. But we already know the ending. It has been realised in the actions that recursively lead to the the death of this pulpy combination of blood and flesh. A death of public freedoms has been realised, and the people have calmly left their carriage of liberties without further question:– afterall, the guns are held by someone else.
The terrorists have won.
If I were to write that in my HSC exam, as a short story or a work of fiction, chances are the paper would be considered a non-serious attempt, as has happened previously in at least one widely-publicised case with ‘excessive’ violence (If memory serves me correctly, this instance detailed a school shooting, I think). This violence is not only on our streets, and in our televisions: it is so pervasive in society that the institutions once assigned the role of preventing such now facilitate it gratuitously and without need for explanation. Remember, in all this, that the British government and bodies that constitute their public service (including the police force) have not identified the need for any further investigation into the procedures that have allowed this brutal murder to take place, and neither has any further investigation into why this man in particular was shot. As of the time of writing, the most recent press release available on the Metropolitan Police website is from the previous day:
“I can say as part of operations linked to yesterday’s incidents, Met police officers have shot a man inside Stockwell Underground Station at approximately 10am this morning. London Ambulance Service and the air ambulance both attended and the man was pronounced dead at the scene. I understand Stockwell tube station remains closed.
The information I have available if [sic] that this shooting is directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation. [Emphasis mine] Any death is deeply regrettable. I understand the man was challenged and refused to obey. I can’t go any further than that at this stage…”
– Sir Ian Blair
This information has since been proven incorrect, yet there is a prevailing silence from the authorities. Democracy requires a degree of openness that has not been allowed, here. Irrespective as to any “ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation”, announcing that an investigation is proceeding into this specific event is not only of no detriment to “anti-terrorist” operations, but a requisite aspect of democracy.
BBC article
SMH article
Someone who knew Jean
23 Jul 2005
I upgraded to the latest Firefox package available through Synaptic Package Manager (package version 1.0.2-0ubuntu5.4 in hoary-security) — and therefore the Ubuntu package repositiories — just then, and it’s been segfaulting on startup ever since.
josh@joah:~$ firefox --verbose<br />
FIREFOX_DSP=esddsp<br />
APPLICATION_ID=firefox<br />
CMDLINE_DISPLAY=<br />
DISPLAY=:0.0<br />
REMOTE=0<br />
TRY_USE_EXIST=0<br />
OPTIONS=<br />
DEBUG=0<br />
DEBUGGER=<br />
Running: /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/firefox-bin -a firefox -remote 'ping()'<br />
PING_STATUS=2<br />
Cleaning user profile<br />
Running: esddsp /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/firefox-bin -a firefox<br />
Segmentation fault<br />
It’s not a huge problem for me, as I’ve recently installed Opera 8.01 on this machine and have absolutely fallen in love with it (but haven’t been using it as my primary browser because all my settings, cookies, etc. are stored in Firefox), and I’ve got Firefox on three other desktops should I need to test a website in it, but it’s a bit annoying.
Hoping whatever’s wrong with the package will get fixed relatively quickly…
UPDATE: Curiously, Firefox appears to launch without any problems whatsoever when a URL is specified (e.g. firefox http://www.joahua.com/blog/ as a launch command). So, now it merely belongs in the realm of irritations as the bug can be circumvented with minimal effort.
A few moments later: Oh, no, apparently not. If one opens a new tab, Firefox decides to crash once again. Cruel world. wanders back to Opera
23 Jul 2005
I know there’s more than a few emerging weblog hosting services out there, but I just discovered Squarespace via a text-based advertisement in Opera’s banner (I’m astounded how unintrusive they are… I think I’m actually appreciating them, which is amazing!), and was instantly impressed by their website’s interface and copy.
Apparently it’s been creating some noise in mainstream media, too. I look at it and I don’t see another content management system people are trying to sell — the website looks, feels, and reads as though it’s a small community project. Which it probably isn’t. I’d imagine they’re making loads of money off this thing. And good on them: it appears they’ve jumped on the Cluetrain, come up with a killer offering, and it’s worked for them.
“Killer offering”, by the way, is not just weblog software. It’s also not just managed weblog software or even web services… it’s commerical, managed, web publishing services that people are crying out for. Six Apart have sort of leant in, but they’re first and foremost a blogging company, whilst Squarespace positions themself in a broader market: they’re a publishing company, that lets you do blogging, if that’s your thing.
I’ve observed all this in the course of about ten minutes, by the way. I haven’t even tried the service yet: this is all in response to their presentation and promotion. Incidentally, Squarespace also have their own blog — part of that whole Cluetrain thing — and have content on it available to anyone under a Creative Commons license. What a cool tech company…