Fabulous Awakenings: The Ethics of Metafiction in La vida es sueño by Calderón de la Barca and Some Tales from the Arabian Nights

Abstract

The manipulation of reality in the style of Calderón’s Life is a Dream produces a narrative structure organized in planes related to metafiction. This structure may be found as well in stories from The Arabian Nights. This essay intends to describe and typify the aforementioned manipulation by referring to the tales of “The Sleeper Awakened”, “The Story of Prince Camaralzaman” and “The Story of Nouredin Ali and Bedredin Hassan”. Whereas in contemporary metafiction it is usually the author who manipulates reality, in Calderón’s play and in these three tales it is a character endowed with power, either natural or supernatural, who interrupts the normal course of action to create a specific fantasy. The ethical dimension of this act, as well as the consequences of the three types of awakening experienced by the victims of the interference, are also dealt with.