Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are longtime friends of Hamlet’s and the king uses this to his
advantage. At first, they are asked to visit Hamlet and figure out why he seems
so depressed. But Hamlet senses something is up and knows that they were sent
for. He soon confides in them that he will only pretend to be crazy. After
Hamlet succeeds in his devious plan to get a reaction from the king, who is
watching the play, Rosencrantz again asks Hamlet what is bothering him. Hamlet
concludes that they are using him for the benefit of the king. Later on, the
king declares Hamlet to be mad and sends him to England giving a letter to the
King of England via Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, requesting Hamlet be put to
death. Hamlet gets back to Denmark and tells Horatio that he switched the
letters which now state that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern be put to death.
Hamlet also says that he has no sympathy for them because they betrayed him and
obeyed the king instead.
Using the
text only to answer this question, it would be a yes and no that Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are true friends to Hamlet. They are true friends because they
do seem somewhat sincere in wanting to know what is wrong with Hamlet.
Rosencrantz asks Hamlet again what is wrong in Act 3, scene 2, line 365 as the
first time was unsuccessful. They also do not directly tell the king that
Hamlet is pretending to be crazy even though they know. However, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are not true friends because they are essentially spies for
the king. They’re obeying his order to spy, then reporting back with their
findings. Hamlet knows they are doing this and essentially can’t trust them
anymore, which leads him to not express any sympathy toward their deaths.
Personally,
I do not think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are true friends to Hamlet. True
friends have your back all the time, you can tell them anything without being
judged, and they will never give up on you. Based on my standards, they do not
fit this description one bit. If Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were true
friends, they would be involved in Hamlet’s plan. Hamlet would be able to fully
trust them and tell them everything that was going through his mind and if
Hamlet needed somebody to disappear, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern should have
stepped up to the plate to help. Also throughout the text, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern only interacted with Hamlet when they need to. I thought they were
friends! When you’re good friends with somebody you want to be around them all
the time, whether they’re crazy or not. Here it seemed like they don’t care and
are merely puppets to King Claudius’ plan.
There is a
song in a particular musical, Anything Goes,
which describes friendship exactly as I think it should be. Ironically enough,
the song is called, “Friendship.” The majority of the musical takes place on a
ship and in the scene leading up to this song a nightclub singer, Reno Sweeney,
and a gangster, Moonface Martin, sing about their flourishing, new found friendship.
(Afterwards they plot how they are going to break up the engagement of a couple
on the ship as Reno is falling in love with the man to be married.) Here is a
link to the song if you so wish to listen to the lovely duet of Sutton Foster
and Joel Grey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9AU--uMcVU.
Basically the underlying message is that friends are supposed to have your back
and be there whenever you need them. And the sad thing is that Hamlet is going
through this breaking point and NOBODY is there to support him. Everyone is
against him and thus declare him mad.
I don’t blame Hamlet for going
crazy. If I can home from college and my family had a situation like his, I
would probably flip out too. But usually in my times of crazy, I have friends
that can sympathize or calm me down. In Hamlet’s case he didn’t. Nobody calmed
him down or gave him sympathy so the amount of crazy he exhibited just kept
increasing until he started killing and freaking out over every little thing.
Once again, if Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were true friends of Hamlet they
should have let him vent, calmed him down, brought him back to reality, and
returned him to society. See this is why everybody needs a friend. So that you
have someone to balance out each other’s crazy fits with.
To possibly understand the title reference, watch this dance number from Anything Goes! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0eYWJZceK4
