Don Quixote As A Hero

A medieval romance is a kind of writing that has a mysterious, supernatural setting, idealizes chivalry and courtly love, and may involve masking a character's real identity. Usually the hero of a medieval romance is a knight who takes an unusual challenge and whose triumph brings glory to the king and the nation. This paper will be an analytical essay, I will examine the writing “Sir Gawain and the Green knight” and show how it fits into the medieval romance genre.

In two stories there is a code that knights follow. Chivalry is the code that they follow. The code says that a knight should be a brave warrior, a good christian, and selflessly fighting for justice. The knights are supposed to fight for their king and queen. In the stories Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and from Morte d’Arthur they show the idea about chivalry.

The protagonist, Don Quixote's obsessive reading of books of chivalry plays a major role in defining his character; his inspiration for his travels as a knight errant comes from the literature about chivalry that he reads, the literature that causes him to lose his mind and go mad. Everything that he usually experiences in his journey, first happened in the books that inspired his travels. The character, Dulcinea’s role as Quixote’s lady-love becomes equivalent with the position a king might hold in a true and honorable knight’s life.

     An act of chivalry is described as the qualifications or character of the ideal knight. Knights were expected to uphold this code of conduct. In the English literature Le Morte d?Arthur, French for ?The Death of Arthur?, by Sir Thomas Malory, the characters display acts of chivalry from beginning to end. Though the code of chivalry contains many qualities or acts, nevertheless bravery, loyalty, and courtly love are demonstrated more throughout this literature.

The line you mentioned is one that caught my attention as well. It seems to be trying to show that just because something is not mentioned directly, does not mean that it is not there. It definitely brought to light the apparent ignorance of Don Quixote as well. While experience is definitely important, passion is just as important as well. However, I would have to agree with you that Don's passion outweighed his ability in this case. When you said "just because it is not in the books, does not mean that it doesn't exist", it reminded me of a quote by Carl Sagan when he stated " absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Anyway, good job Robert on this post and thanks for sharing.

Over the course of this semester, students of World Masterpieces by Amanda Drake have learned about “othering” and anti-heroism. Many of the central characters in the stories and plays that were assigned, exemplified anti heroism and othering. Anti-Heroes, by definition, are typically main characters of a story, play or movie, which lack classic “heroic” traits. Due to these characters lacking heroic traits, they are othered by society and peers, making these characters outcasts.

A sharp contrast is seen between the narration style of chapter 8 and 9 of Don Quixote. The seemingly flowing tale of Quixote and Basque’s great battle is abruptly halted, and then after much explanation regarding the finding and composition of the remainder, is the tale finally allowed to unfold.

The word chivalry is often associated with knights of the medieval ages. This term was used during the 11th and 12th century. The code of chivalry is a code of conduct that reflected bravery and service to others. This code of conduct was expected of the medieval knights. In his book, La Chevalerie, Leon Gautier wrote the ten commandments of chivalry which were the following: 1. Believe the Church’s teachings and observe all the Church’s directions, 2. Defend the Church, 3. Respect and defend the weak, 4. Love your

It is through the character of Sancho Panza that the readers can view Don from a different window. In this window, Don is a noble, just man attempting to improve the world through the means that he believes to be best appropriate. Without perspective of Sancho Panza, the Don would seem to be an irrational old man who is managing to makes everyone else’s life harder by his mischievous adventures. Sancho shines a light upon the character of Don Quixote that no other character in the novel

Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It follows the adventures 

of Alonso Quixano, a retired elderly man who develops a fascination with chivalrous novels 

eventually become delusional, believing everything written to be true and currently going on in 

the Spanish country side where he lives (La Mancha). The novel itself contains a narration of 

Quixote’s adventures. These adventures are broken up into “Sally’s”. The first Sally feature 

Quixote’s first “quests”. After setting out early in the morning Quixote eventually wanders his 

way to an inn that he believes to be a castle, he asks the innkeeper who he believe to be a lord to 

dub him a knight. Have very little money Quixote’s spend the night in the stable with his horse, 

where he starts a fight with muleteers who are attempting to water their mules. Quixote’s take 

attempts to remove his gear from the trough as a threat and attacks the men. As a result the 

innkeeper tell Quixote’s to leave.


 Quixote’s next quest is that of “frees” a boy who is tied to a tree and being beaten by his 

master. After freeing the boy Quixote’s makes the master promise on a chivalric code to treat the 

boy fairly, upon leaving the beaten continues worse then it had previously been. His final quest is 

to defend the honor of his imagined lover, from traders he met on the road. After picking a fight 

with the traders Quixote’s is left badly wounded on the side of the road. He is found and

When a merchant responds by asking to see her Quixote decides he’s had enough and charges at them. In a rather comedic sequence of events Rocianante trips and throws Quixote to the ground where he is beat mercilessly by the annoyed merchants. With Quixote lying on the ground unable to move, any questions regarding our noble knight’s sanity are laid to rest. Thus ends the first adventure and first five chapters of the novel, in which Quixotes’ ridiculousness is clearly Cervantes’ literary tool to mock chivalric romances. However, in the later chapters of the novel Cervantes expands Quixote’s depth by highlighting his one admirable trait; his faith. Quixote is foolish, but he is also so convinced of his valiant knight-errantry that he actually turns victorious on several occasions. In his Lectures on Don Quixote Vladimir Nabakov lists the 40 encounters that occur in the book and notes that there are 20 defeats that balance perfectly with 20 victories. Despite the Quixote’s delusional pursuits of the fantastical, this equal balance of defeats and victories proves that Cervantes intended Quixote to actually be a moderately heroic character. Thus, on the surface we see Quixote as a laughable character and a poor excuse for a knight, however by allowing him frequent success Cervantes lends merit to the fantasist spirit that our Man de la

Chivalry simply means having the skills to handle a horse. This ability, especially in combat, was of utmost importance to a medieval knight. This term began to take on new meanings, especially during the first crusade (1095 AD) when Christianization of knights began in earnest. The

In The Green Knight and Morte D’Arthur we are taught what chivalry means and how it is put to use. Chivalry is a code of the knights you have to have courage, honor, respect and most of all you have to protect your king. We define knights this way because they are strong warriors that fight until the death for their kingdom. In every action that they make it either breaks the code of the warriors or it makes them a better knight. There are many actions in The Green Knight and Morte D’Arthur that show us the chivalry in action.

Don Quixote is a character who read so many books on chivalry, he 'was so absorbed in these books that his nights were spent reading from dusk till dawn…until the lack of sleep and the excess of reading withered his brain, and he went mad'(Cervantes p.26). 'considering it desirable and necessary, both for the increase of his honour and for the common good [he becomes] a knight errant'

“At the heart of Don Quixote is the discrepancy between external appearance and internal perception.” says Wirfs-Brock (2). In that respect, Don Quixote is depicted as a character who is guided merely by his internal perceptions, disregarding external appearances. Most of the time, he is deluded, depended on his faculty of imagination, stuck in his make-believe world through the guidance of chivalric books he is obsessed with and “everything he read in his books took possession of his imagination” (1/1 p.27). He takes everything he reads in those books for real as if they were parts of history and decides to join this glorious history by making a knight errant of him. In order to put all he has read into practice, he puts on a rusty armor, devises a heroic name for himself which is ‘Don Quixote de la Mancha’ and for his horse which is ‘Rocinante’. Additionally, since “a knight errant without a lady-love is a tree without leaves or fruit, a body without a soul” (1/1 p.29) he finds “a good-looking peasant girl” called Aldonza Lorenzo and decides to call her ‘Dulcinea del Toboso’. So this peasant girl becomes a princess, the most beautiful lady in the world for him to whom he may serve “as if he really were in love” (1/1 p.31).