Tom StoppardTom Stoppard is one of the most interesting and creative playwrights of the 20th century. He uses his art form to criticize society's inability to deal with the idea that we are ruled by chaos. The modern world has created destiny as an excuse to do nothing that can shape or change our future. Stoppard uses his plays as a mirror held up to society, showing his audience the ridiculousness of leaving everything to fate. Tom Stoppard is a contemporary playwright living in Great Britain. He was born in 1937 and produced his first hit play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1966. His more recent works include Travesties and Arcadia. The decor of these three rooms is very different; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern set in Shakespeare's time, Travesties set during World War I, and Arcadia set in 1809 and today. Yet in all three contexts, Stoppard created modern characters to reflect modern attitudes, and specifically modern flaws. In each case, he shows that the characters representing modern men will readily believe that their future cannot be changed and that they are not responsible for their own actions. He uses different characters in very different circumstances to make and criticize this same point. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Stoppard cleverly removes the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from the play Hamlet, expanding Shakespeare's caricatures and making them modern. The play now tells the story of how Rosencrantz and Guildenstern present the viewer with a picture of modern attitudes. They never perceive any sort of order in the universe. For them, everything is completely random. On the other hand, the Player represents the middle of the paper......capable of creating clear differences in attitude between the 1809 cast and the current cast. He was thus able to present his societal mirror to the public in two different ways. Firstly, in the differences between the 1809 cast and the modern cast and, secondly, in the way the characters in the modern cast embody modern attitudes. The best examples of this are the differences between Thomasina and Valentine and how Valentine's lack of patience and willingness to give up trying to find patterns in the chaos of nature reflects society's inability to cope with chaos . Bibliography: Stoppard, Tom., Arcadia, New York, Samuel French, Inc., 1993. Stoppard, Tom., Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, New York, Samuel French, Inc., 1967. Stoppard, Tom., Travesties, New York, Grove Press, 1975.