Somebody is watching
The Panoptic Gaze in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31973/jwbekh33Keywords:
Tom Stoppard, disciplinary power, docile bodies, the Gaze, NormalisationAbstract
This study examines Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead through the theoretical framework of Michel Foucault’s theory the Panopticon and the concepts of disciplinary power and surveillance. By examining how power operates through visibility, observation, and normalization, this study reveals how the two protagonists are trapped within a system that makes them passive, obedient, and ultimately disposable. Their feelings of disorientation, alienation, and powerlessness reflect the internalized structures of control Foucault describes—where force is replaced by an omnipresent visibility and self-regulation. As the play unfolds, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern become allegories for modern subjectivity under observation: watched, categorized, and ultimately eliminated without resistance or recognition. Their disappearance at the end of the play is not just a dramatic conclusion but a bureaucratic erasure, symptomatic of the silent violence perpetrated by disciplinary regimes. Not only does this reading emphasize the absurdity and philosophical barrenness at the heart of Stoppard’s play, but it also opens the way for a deeper exploration of the development of surveillance on the modern stage.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Mustafa Mohammed Jafaar , Asst. Prof. Zainab Hasoon Abd Al-Ameer
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