Power Has Many Faces, But Who Gets Forgotten?
This Blog is a part of Thinking Activity on Cultural Studies assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad sir where I will ponder up my thoughts regarding analyzing the marginalization of minor characters in Hamlet and relate it to themes of power and systemic marginalization, drawing connections to modern-day corporate hierarchies.
Introduction
Literature does not only tell stories about kings, heroes, and central characters. It also reveals what happens to those who exist on the margins of powerful systems. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead offer a particularly striking exploration of this idea through the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Although they occupy a relatively minor position in Shakespeare’s tragedy, their experiences reveal how individuals can become instruments within larger structures of political power.
A Cultural Studies approach allows us to look beyond the individual characters and examine the systems surrounding them. Power, hierarchy, ideology, social position, and economic structures influence who receives attention, who possesses authority, and who can be easily discarded. The study material specifically connects the marginalization of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with contemporary corporate structures, where ordinary workers may similarly be treated as expendable “assets.”
Stoppard takes Shakespeare’s marginal characters and places them at the centre of his own play. In doing so, he transforms their relatively limited role in Hamlet into an existential investigation of identity, purpose, uncertainty, and powerlessness. The two plays therefore provide an interesting connection between Renaissance political structures and modern experiences of institutional control.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: The Marginal Figures of Hamlet
In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are childhood acquaintances of Hamlet who are summoned to the Danish court by King Claudius and Queen Gertrude. Their position appears initially to be privileged because they have access to the royal court and are connected with the prince. However, their actual position is much weaker than it appears.
They do not control the political situation in which they become involved. Instead, they are used by those who possess greater authority. Claudius employs them to discover the reason behind Hamlet’s unusual behaviour and later sends them with Hamlet to England carrying the order for his execution.
Their marginalization becomes particularly significant through Hamlet’s description of Rosencrantz as a “sponge.” The image suggests an individual who absorbs what those in power give him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern become instruments through which political authority operates rather than independent agents capable of determining their own fate. The study material specifically identifies their representation as marginal figures and asks us to consider how the metaphor of the “sponge” reveals their expendability within the power structure of the play.
Their eventual fate demonstrates the consequences of occupying such a position. They become caught between Hamlet and Claudius, two figures with very different forms of power. Ultimately, they are sacrificed by the political machinery surrounding the royal court.
Their importance, therefore, does not depend on how much authority they possess. Rather, their lack of authority becomes the point. They represent the “little people” whose lives can be manipulated by larger political and institutional structures.
Power and the Expendability of the Individual
Cultural Studies encourages us to examine literature in relation to the structures of society. Power is not restricted to kings, governments, or visibly powerful individuals. It can operate through institutions, relationships, language, ideology, and systems of social organization.
This perspective is particularly useful when examining Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They are not the architects of the political conflict in Hamlet. Nevertheless, they become its casualties.
Claudius possesses institutional and political authority. Hamlet possesses the power associated with his position as prince, together with his ability to manipulate language and situations. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern possess considerably less power. Their proximity to authority does not give them genuine control.
This distinction between being close to power and actually possessing power is central to their marginalization.
The theoretical framework provided in the study material makes this connection even more significant. Louis Althusser’s discussion of ideology and state power can be used to understand how individuals function within larger structures. Michel Foucault’s work on power and knowledge provides another framework for examining how individuals can be controlled and manipulated through systems of authority. Antonio Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony similarly helps us think about how larger social forces shape the behaviour and position of individuals.
Thus, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can be read not simply as comic or secondary characters but as figures through whom the operation of power becomes visible.
From the Royal Court to the Corporate World
One of the most striking aspects of the Cultural Studies approach in the study material is its connection between Shakespeare’s world and modern corporate structures.
The comparison is not based on the idea that a royal court and a corporation are identical. Instead, the parallel lies in the relationship between powerful institutions and individuals with limited control over their circumstances.
In contemporary workplaces, organizational decisions can affect employees who have little influence over those decisions. Downsizing, restructuring, relocation, and globalization can result in workers losing their positions even when the decisions are made far above them.
The study material explicitly asks students to consider how the fate of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can be compared with workers affected when multinational companies relocate or downsize.
This comparison changes the way we understand the two characters.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are useful to Claudius only as long as they can perform a particular function. Once that function is completed, their individual value within the political system becomes insignificant. Similarly, within highly hierarchical organizations, workers may sometimes experience themselves primarily through their institutional function rather than through their individual identity.
The important Cultural Studies question is therefore not simply “What happens to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?” but “What kind of system makes their fate possible?”
Stoppard’s Existential Reinterpretation
Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead radically changes the perspective by placing these marginal characters at the centre of the narrative.
In Shakespeare, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exist primarily within Hamlet’s story. In Stoppard, however, Hamlet becomes part of their story. This reversal itself is significant. Characters who were previously peripheral become central, while the supposedly central narrative becomes something they only partially understand.
Stoppard deepens their marginalization by exploring questions of existence, identity, purpose, and uncertainty. The study material identifies Stoppard’s play as a modern reinterpretation that frames the two characters within existentialist themes.
They frequently appear uncertain about where they are, what they are supposed to do, and why events are happening around them. Their inability to understand the larger narrative surrounding them becomes an important metaphor for human powerlessness.
They are characters who are inside the system but unable to understand the system.
This is what makes Stoppard’s reinterpretation particularly relevant to modern experiences of institutional life. An individual may participate in a workplace, university, bureaucracy, or other institution without having access to the larger mechanisms through which decisions are made.
The “Little People” and Invisible Power
The phrase “little people” becomes important because it draws attention to individuals who are overshadowed by larger political, economic, or institutional structures.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not completely powerless. They make decisions and attempt to respond to their circumstances. Yet their choices occur within conditions they did not create.
This is an important distinction in Cultural Studies: marginalization does not necessarily mean that an individual has no agency at all. Instead, agency may be restricted by structures that determine the possibilities available to that individual.
Their experience therefore encourages us to ask several questions:
Who makes the decisions?
Who benefits from those decisions?
Who carries the consequences?
Whose voices become visible, and whose disappear?
These questions can be applied not only to literature but also to contemporary social and institutional life.
From Political Marginalization to Economic Marginalization
The connection between Hamlet and modern corporate culture becomes even clearer when we consider the idea of the individual as a “dispensable asset.”
In the royal court, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are valuable because they can perform a task for the king. Their personal identities become secondary to their usefulness.
The same conceptual structure can appear in modern institutional environments when people are primarily understood according to their roles, productivity, or economic function.
The study material encourages students to reflect on this parallel and consider how the experience of being treated as a dispensable “asset” shapes our understanding of Cultural Studies and power dynamics.
The comparison is especially relevant in discussions of job insecurity. When organizational priorities change, individuals may discover that their position within a system is less secure than they believed.
Thus, the distance between Shakespeare’s court and the modern workplace may be historically enormous, yet the underlying question remains recognizable:
What happens to individuals when they become replaceable within a powerful system?
A Cultural Studies Reading of the Two Plays
A Cultural Studies reading brings together literature, history, politics, economics, ideology, and social structures. The study material provides several theoretical perspectives that can enrich this interpretation.
Louis Althusser helps us consider ideology and institutional power.
Michel Foucault allows us to examine the relationship between power, knowledge, and social structures.
Antonio Gramsci provides the concept of cultural hegemony and helps us consider how larger social forces influence individuals.
Stephen Greenblatt’s New Historicism connects literary characters with the political and cultural forces of their historical moment.
Edward Said provides a broader framework for examining relationships between culture and power.
Raymond Williams helps us understand the relationship between cultural production and social structures.
These perspectives demonstrate that literature can function as a space where social power becomes visible and open to examination.
Why Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Matter
At first glance, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may appear to be relatively insignificant characters in Hamlet. Yet their marginal position makes them particularly valuable for Cultural Studies.
They reveal that a literary text is not only about its central hero. It is also about the people standing around that hero—the people who serve the powerful, follow instructions, perform necessary tasks, and sometimes disappear without receiving recognition.
Stoppard takes this idea even further. By making Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the protagonists of his play, he asks readers to look at the story from the perspective of those who were previously pushed to the margins.
This shift in perspective is itself a cultural and critical act.
It asks us to reconsider whose story deserves to be told.
Conclusion: From Shakespeare’s Court to the Modern World
The marginalization of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern demonstrates how literary characters can illuminate larger structures of power. In Hamlet, they are caught within the political machinery of the Danish court and ultimately become expendable figures. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Stoppard transforms their marginal position into an existential exploration of identity, uncertainty, and purpose.
Their story also opens a pathway towards understanding contemporary experiences of institutional and corporate power. The comparison with corporate downsizing, globalization, job insecurity, and organizational control encourages us to examine how individuals can become replaceable within systems larger than themselves.
The most important lesson of this Cultural Studies reading is that marginal characters are not necessarily marginal in meaning. Sometimes, those who stand at the edges of a narrative reveal the structure of the entire system more clearly than those who occupy its centre.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern therefore become more than two minor characters in Shakespeare. They become a lens through which we can examine power, hierarchy, ideology, marginalization, and the precarious position of the individual within larger social structures.
Their story ultimately reminds us that behind every powerful system are individuals who experience its decisions—and Cultural Studies gives us the critical tools to notice them.
References
Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, translated by Ben Brewster, Monthly Review Press, 1971, pp. 127–186. Read the text
Barad, Dilip. “Thinking Activity: Exploring Marginalization in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” ResearchGate, 2024. ResearchGate
Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Edited by Colin Gordon, Pantheon Books, 1980. Google Books
Gramsci, Antonio. “The Intellectuals.” Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, International Publishers, 1971, pp. 5–23. “The Intellectuals”
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. University of Chicago Press, 1980. University of Chicago Press
Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 2005. Google Books
Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. Vintage Books, 1993. Google Books
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Project Gutenberg, 1999, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1524.
Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Grove Press, 1967. Google Books
Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. 8th ed., Routledge, 2018. Routledge / Taylor & Francis
Veeser, H. Aram, editor. The New Historicism. Routledge, 1989. Routledge
Williams, Raymond. “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory.” New Left Review, no. 82, 1973, pp. 3–16. New Left Review
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