Postmodernism emerged in the last century to confront many conventions of the modernist era. Authors such as Fowles, Delillo, Pynchon, Borges and Stoppard play on the convictions of audiences and take from them what society holds most dear. In Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead two bewildered heroes are able to redefine the world they have been subjected to by questioning every certainty they come across. A broad range of standards are subjected to intense scrutiny and ultimate demolition, for example when a coin Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are flipping lands on heads for the hundredth time, the laws of probability immediately become void. Then, Identity another self-evident truth is masked by the interchangeability of the main characters' names and personalities. The players further tear apart identity by playing with reality and taking the form of many characters at different times. After the foundation of these distinctions is demolished the rest of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's reality is reduced to rubble. The widely constant laws of physics apply only at certain times. Truth does not exist, because the questions keep changing. Time is completely useless. Space, which is agreed upon to have three dimensions, begins to multiply and shift without notice. Basically, any notion of reality is false. Finally, Stoppard deconstructs death, the one absolute, into obscurity. In keeping with postmodern tradition, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead modern society's many ideals are deconstructed to allow them to be questioned and new realities emerge.
             At first glance there does not seem to be much purpose in deconstructing everything humans have been taught to believe in, except for driving senior English students to the point of insanity or enlightenment (or perhaps both). One must realize that the point of the play is not to provide answers, but to show how it is acceptable to question the est...