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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the Player do when Rosencrantz tosses a coin on the ground in front of the Player?

2. What is the Player's response when Guildenstern asks if the troupe found them by chance?

3. When Guildenstern insists their meeting must have been chance, how does the Player reply?

4. Leaving Claudius and Gertrude, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are met by which character?

5. What type of play does the Player mention that comes at another cost?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Guildenstern take advantage of the Player?

2. Why is Guildenstern so repulsed by the Player's immoral suggestions for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

3. How does Guildenstern come across as the more intelligent of the two men?

4. Why are Guildenstern and Rosencrantz on this road and what has Guildenstern been expecting?

5. What comic relief does the dialogue about home provide for the play?

6. Throughout the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern never leave the stage. What stops them from following the Queen's attendants to go find Hamlet?

7. How does Guildenstern continue trying to analyze the situation?

8. How does the audience understand that Rosencrantz is quite naive?

9. How does the Player reinforce the idea that the troupe is willing to perform a vulgar show?

10. Trying to make sense of their situation, to what does Guildenstern think back?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a paper on why and how there were no female actors during the Elizabethan age. Use Alfred as your example of how female characters were portrayed. Include the idea that Shakespeare himself may have begun his career in the theater as a female impersonator.

Essay Topic 2

Write a paper on costuming for a play. Hamlet has been staged often in modern dress. Why, then, is it important in Stoppard's play that the costumes be Elizabethan? What do you think the costumes add to the play?

Essay Topic 3

Write a paper about the use of language styles in Stoppard's play. To what end does Stoppard utilize Elizabethan English in some scenes and modern English in others. Does this also help in identifying locations?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 810 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample