Abstract

The present work analyzes the concept of possible worlds within Possible Worlds, a film by the Canadian director Robert Lepage, and El gran teatro del mundo by Calderón de la Barca. Both works deal with a humanity that lives under the rules of an external order, but that is able to use the free will. On one hand, Lepage plays with the mathematical theory of possible worlds which intends to prove the existence of a single person in parallel universes. On the other hand, Calderón creates a metaphor of the human existence as the transit of the characters from one side of the stage to the other, signified by a cradle and a tombstone, where the characters have to prepare themselves to be judged by the author of the play they have just performed. Both works question the importance of worldly values and present a concept of the human being as a whole, integrated by its mental operations, or souls, and the body that contains them.