Meditation 10

This was possibly one of my favorite works we have read this year. It kept me interested especially in act two when Segismundo goes wild. It was a good strategy to make him believe he was just dreaming instead of actually ruling by giving him drugs. I also liked how the ending was unexpected because I know if that was me I would have been very upset with my father.
I agree with others when they say it seems like a Greek tragedy rather than more recent works so I will compare it to something else. While this may be a stretch, this play reminded me a little bit of the Movie Shrek. In both the movie and this play there is a character that is held captive because of basically nothing they did. When they are given a chance to live the normal life they show their true insides. Princess Fiona chooses to go with the short prince when she and Shrek have a misunderstanding. In Life is a Dream, Segismundo acts somewhat like a tyrant when he gets the chance to rule. What was more similar in these works was the ending. They both had a “fairy tale” type ending. This is what made Life is a Dream different from the Greek Tragedies. In the play, Segismundo and his father re-unite and when he becomes king, he marries, and in Shrek the princess drops the short prince and marries Shrek despite their original misunderstanding. This was an obvious stretch on my part, but I really couldn’t think of any particular work that this reminded me of, and it’s overall storyline was somewhat similar to Shrek.