ROZENCRANTZ AND GUILDERNSTERN ARE DEAD AND THE QUESTION OF DASEIN

Upon reading Stoppard’s Rozencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead what comes to mind is a series of radically fundamental questions such as the status of human being in the world, the problem of existence, the concept of subjectivity and etc. These are the very issues directly addressed by many philosophers and among them phenomenologists. Heidegger as one of the most prominent phenomenologists made an attempt to answer the ontological questions of being through the introduction of some terms to philosophy such as Dasein. The concept of Dasein came to prominence so as to signify a certain idea of being called the being-in-the-world and a certain process known as being-toward-death. This paper aims at the phenomenological description of Roz and Guil’s movement towards death in the light of Dasein. This so called Dasein as based on historicity and facticity is rather helpful in giving an account of the characters’ “self-showing” while giving a hint about their fate as objectified beings. Making use of the specifically Shakespearean context of the play, this study represents a certain philosophical subtlety inherent in the play’s assumed difference between being and beings.