An Analysis Of Indeterminacy In Tom Stoppard’s Plays

Tom Stoppard is a well-known British playwright, whose achievements have been recognized by the whole western theatrical circles. He has received four Tony Award for Best Play and one Academy Award for Best Writing Original Screenplay. He was awarded British PEN Pinter Prize in 2013. Most characters in Stoppard’s plays are eloquent intellectuals, with witty and comedic language, and structures are infused with intertextuality, thus his works are defined as Stoppardian drama by Toby Zimnan. This thesis makes a complete analysis and research of Stoppard’s two remarkable plays: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Travesties from different levels, based on Ihab Hassan’s theory of indeterminacy of postmodernism.This thesis comes up with indeterminacy of Stoppard’s plays by reviewing the research results for his works at home and abroad, which is also a meaningful study for postmodern drama. At Abroad, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an overnight excellent play which is paid great attention to by the critics at the beginning. They give positive and negative evaluation for this play at the same time. Most critics enjoy its comedic language, distinctive structure and deep meaning, and others criticize that this work not only borrows much from the works of Shakespeare and Beckett, but also overuses dramatic forms and ignores politics. Travesties is also an outstanding play of Stoppard whose creation overturns traditional understanding for historical figures and applies many languages and memory structure. In China, the study for Stoppard’s plays is comparatively late and needs to be perfected. Some scholars have completed some translation for his scripts and several articles and papers. This thesis studies indeterminacy of characters and language, plots and narrative structure, and themes from the perspective of postmodernism based on much research and analysis. This thesis aims to explain the relationship between Stoppard’s plays and indeterminacy, which contributes to the research for postmodern drama and helps people to struggle with their living state in an uncertain world and probe into the relationship among art, life and politics.This thesis is composed of three parts, including an introduction, the main body and a conclusion. Its main contents are as follows:The first part is introduction. This part firstly makes a brief introduction of Stoppard and his representative works. Next, it gives an overview of research results of Stoppard’s plays at home and abroad. Finally, this part points out that the great theoretical and practical significance of the analysis on his two plays according to the theory of indeterminacy of postmodernism.The second part is the main body, which consists of four chapters:Chapter One mainly introduces Stoppard’s plays and postmodernism. Firstly, there is a summary of main characteristics of postmodernism, emphasizing its indeterminacy. Postmodernism started from the European and American philosophical circles at 1960 s and then was widely involved in philosophy, literature, sociology and other important fields. Hassan summarizes several characteristics of postmodernism and emphasizes indeterminacy and immanence. Then this chapter discusses Stoppard’s dramatic indeterminacy combined with Hassan’s theories from the aspects of characters and language, plot and narration, and themes in these two works. Stoppard’s plays are universally embodied in the field of postmodernism, thus indeterminacy reveals Stoppardian dramatic value.Chapter Two mainly deals with indeterminacy of characters and language. This chapter firstly concentrates on the indeterminacy from the perspective of characters’ identity and motivation. Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are different from the two betrayers with flattery of Shakespeare and the negative Gogo and Didi of Beckett. On the contrary, the two characters are forced in the court struggle and finally lose lives in an innocent way. Old Carr in Travesties narrates his story with Joyce, Tzara and Lenin through unreliable memory. Besides, this chapter demonstrates the indeterminacy of language, including the mismatched dialogues and various rhetorical methods. Stoppard is good at using language skills, for instance, pun, alliteration and monologue, resulting in indeterminacy of language in these two plays. At last, it summarizes the meaning of indeterminacy of characters and language.Chapter Three discusses indeterminacy of plot and narrative structure. This chapter firstly focuses on the intertextual plots caused by means of parody and collage in these two plays. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a classical intertextual play with Hamlet, Waiting for Godot and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Then it explores the special narrative perspectives and devices through memory. Old Carr in Travesties uses uncertain memory to narrate his story with three historical figures, which causes indeterminacy of narrative structure. Finally, it reveals the meaning of indeterminacy of plot and narration.Chapter Four summarizes indeterminacy of multiple themes in Stoppard’s works. Those themes of absurdity and seriousness, art and life, art and politics are concluded from the two representative works. Stoppard is adept to using absurd forms to reflect serious themes. He reveals the living state hidden behind absurdity of the whole human beings in his plays. Besides, art, life and politics are closely related, and this chapter not only discusses their relationship, but also enlightens contemporary humans to cherish art. Finally, it points out that indeterminacy of themes in Stoppard’s plays is endowed with universally practical significance, reflecting the common circumstances for human beings.The last part is conclusion. This part makes a summary for the preceding discourse analysis, explaining the two representative plays from different levels based on the theory of Hassan’s indeterminacy of postmodernism. Next, this part aims to reveal theoretical and practical meaning of indeterminacy from the two plays. Theoretically, this thesis is helpful for researching Stoppard’s postmodern drama further. Practically, this thesis is good for contemporary humans to think how to change their common existential plight in an uncertain state so as to go forward better. Moreover, this thesis can guide contemporary people to probe into the relationship among art, life and politics. At last, this thesis points out those problems to be researched and solved in the future.