Segismundo's Fear at the End of La vida es sueno

Abstract

A number of critics have considered the third encounter between Rosaura and Segismundo to be the crucial moment of La vida es sueno. Edward M. Wilson states that at their meeting in the third act, scales fall from [Segismundo's] eyes.' Others have reinforced and developed the idea that Rosaura prepares the ground for Segismundo's conversion by informing him that he actually lived the day at court.2 My concerns here will be Rosaura's omissions and the vestige of confusion they create in Segismundo's view of his experience. Her failure to mention that he was drugged, taken back to the tower, and deceived by Clotaldo has a direct bearing on the third soliloquy and on the conclusion of the play. Thematic interpretations of La vida es sueno have overlooked important details of action and dialogue in both passages. In discussion of the third soliloquy, emphasis has been placed on Segismundo's decision to acudir a lo eterno and defend Rosaura's honor rather than indulge his lust. I believe that the primary problems Segismundo confronts in the speech are logical and semantic, and that his attempt to solve them envelops his ethical struggle.3 Much of the soliloquy is a sustained effort to reconcile the inference that he did not dream the day at court with Rosaura's statement that fue la pompa / de tu majestad un suefio (2721-22).4 On the basis of limited, partial information, Segismundo moves laboriously from the notion that life and dream are literally the same to a grasp of their figurative equivalence. The process of moral choice is interwoven with his decipherment of her figure of speech. Had Rosaura told him precisely how he was tricked into believing that he dreamed the day at court, there would have been no confusi6n, no occasion for this meditation, and perhaps no surrender to Basilio. Segismundo's ignorance may indeed serve to limit his animosity toward his father and thus make reconciliation possible. It has another important function: to dramatize the fact that he has not fully achieved the self-mastery he claims as the greatest victory of the day. Most analyses of the ending have focused on the justice (or injustice) of imprisoning the Rebel Soldier and the moral, legal, or political implications of this act.5 I