Curiosity Killed the Attendant Lords - Views on Stoppard

... highest", most intellectual kind -academic curiosity-, and it is wasted. This precious resource, the craving for knowledge, this unadulterated interest in the world manifested by Guildenstern and Rosencrantz's somewhat more egoistic "self-interest", is thwarted by their incapacity to actually apply what they already should know. They -especially Guildenstern- wish to construct an edifice of knowledge upon an unsound foundation. As with their Shakespearean alter-egos, they inevitably fail.

We must of course remember that R. & G. in many ways adheres to the existentialist school, and that the two characters it portrays are trapped in an absurd world they do not comprehend. They occasionally get "tangled up" in events from the famous tragedy but they appear singularly unconcerned about the events taking place in the "mainstream" plot:

"I don't pretend to have understood. Frankly, I'm not very interested. If they don't tell us, that's their affair. For my part, I'm only glad that that's the last we've seen of him."

Their craving of knowledge is more than interest in the world that surrounds them, it is a desperate attempt to understand, and hence gain some influence in, the world that surrounds them, that entombs them. Naturally enough they seek some form of authority of their own lives, for want of anything better they ultimately choose to deliver their death-warrant. Intimately linked with knowledge of a certain situation is control of that situation: undeniably the protagonists seek some form of authority through information. The Player, another major character, effectively contrasts this wish of theirs; and, arguably because he seeks nothing, he survives. Not only does he have no control, he professes none:

"We have no control".

Seizing upon the possibility, Guildenstern soon remarks that:

"Perhaps I could use my influence. [...] At the court. I would say I have some influence. [...] I have influence yet. [...] (Guil seizes the Player violently) I have influence!".

In fusing two such traits into a single character -curiosity and a desire to have some form of control- the playwright succeeds in forging a very strong link between the two. The two main characters seek information, Guildenstern has some form of understanding of knowledge but not enough to know it's limits of applicability, and he professes influence at court when he has only just been summoned. We could easily fall prey to the erroneous belief that knowledge is sort solely for control, yet this is not so:

"No enigma, no dignity...".

Thus it is very much the search for knowledge, and not the knowledge acquired in itself, that is seen to be "noble", worthwhile even though it bears no fruits. This is in many ways t ...