Don Quixote Essay

The archetypes that are prevalent in many different stories all have have common origin in Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces. More specifically, in the medieval story, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, there are distinct archetypes that are especially necessary to the theme of the story.An understanding of three key archetypes—the temptress the magic weapon, and the task—reveal the essence of Gawain’s role within the archetypal quest motif.

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.

All birthdays are special. Birthdays celebrate life and the passing of time. In a young Mexican girl life, there is no birthday more important then her quinceañera. The quinceañera is a celebration of a girl’s journey into womanhood. The story of my fifteenth birthday is contributed for a better understanding of how special it is to celebrate a girl’s transformation into a lady, and how it differs from any other birthday she celebrates.

Throughout history, most young girls have a Quinceanera which is a special occasion and traditional celebration of a young girl turning fifteen on her birthday and making a transition from child to adult. Reached maturity and eligibility for marriage, which has been custom in most countries. A Quinceanera is something that started many years ago when a Spanish conqueror brought the tradition to Mexico and other countries. Throughout most countries, parents don’t celebrate their daughter’s fifteenth birthday by having a Quinceanera; they celebrated daughter’s birthday differently from other countries. While in countries like Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central, and South America are the only ones who celebrate their daughter’s

In many works of literature, many archetypes (or symbols) are used to help the reader understand the story of a hero’s quest. In the Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, the hero has to go on a fatal journey to uphold the reputation of Camelot. While enduring that journey, Gawain has to conquer many trails. Gawain’s succession of trials leaves the hero, like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, a “sadder but wiser man.” With all the trials that Gawins intakes, many archetypal characters contribute to the theme of the story.

Archetypes are universal symbols used in literature to represent fundamental human motifs. In the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the hero must undergo archetypal situations to succeed in his quest to redeem the honor of Camelot. Gawain embodies the transcendent hero as he further goes into “The Zone of Magnified Power” (Campbell 71) then faces conflict resulting from the threat placed on the society. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dramatically demonstrates how a single character can play many archetypal roles.

An archetypal analysis of Gawain’s quest reveals some significant changes that occur in the hero’s character. We will analyze the progress of the hero, Gawain, as he ventures out to complete his quest. By analyzing the works of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight along with The Hero With A Thousand Faces, and how it completes the Hero’s Journey.

Even in the middle ages of literature, a story such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight had many aspects of Joseph Campbell’s view of the hero’s journey. In the story of our character Sir Gawain accepts a “Call to adventure” (Campbell 45) and goes on a quest that will go through many of the archetypes. Likewise, there lies one character, The Green Knight, that can be many of the archetypal characters in the cycle of the hero’s journey. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dramatically demonstrates how a single character can play many archetypal roles.

Consequently, most of the situations that Don Quixote is placed in during his ridiculous quest are excellent examples of slapstick comedy. The reader is highly entertained by Don Quixote on his adventures during which he implicitly believes that he is like the knights in the novels he has read and so; he logically believes his own fiction. The reader is embarrassed when Don Quixote decides that by choosing a new name for himself, his horse, his lady and his friends that this will suffice in making him a knight. Just like he shaped his own appearance, he chooses his name as “Don Quixote de La Mancha” and this becomes one of the most prominent jokes of the book. It is a name that is undignified and pretentious but simultaneously amusing because La Mancha is a dry, sparsely populated region of Spain, which is exactly what a knight should avoid. The suffix –ote was considered derogatory at that time and it is even funny sounding. We are skeptical from the very beginning as to whether or not Don Quixote is worthy of the title “Don” and our suspicions are confirmed when he fails to assist people in distress like any good knight should. It is highly entertaining when Andrés specifically asks Don Quixote not to complicate his life with any more of his help

Depicted on the cover of Quixote’s Soldiers is a group of Mexican- American men and women in protest formation. They carry with them signs that say “Justice for La Raza,” “Ando sangrando igual que tu,” and “Cops out of our communities!” David Montejano argues that Mexican- American reform groups are often left out of the Civil Rights Movement taught in a classroom. San Antonio was the birthplace of the Chicano movement. Here, various organizations were formed to encourage the government to increase Mexican- Americans opportunities in the educational field as well as in the work field. The Brown Power movement campaigned for Mexican- Americans to reject assimilation into the American mainstream society, and celebrate their Chicano history.

The dynamic of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is one of the ways Cervantes entices his readers. He creates a stark contrast between these two characters right off the bat and creates a rapport that leaves readers laughing. He establishes the contrast in stature and mental state and creates two characters that, in time, learn to love and complement each other greatly.

“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).

enemies would be left to rot, but in his own reality, he is doing the only

A role of Don Quixote’s delusions is to provide a glimpse into a situation where the chivalric code is implemented. Don Quixote is mad at first glance:

When Don Quixote was dieing and in his bed, he was depressed until he thought he was a knight again. Aldonza told him he was not well and he said "Not well? What is sickness to the body of a knight-errant? What matter wounds? For each time he falls he shall rise again-and woe to the wicked!" (Man of La Mancha pg 79). He was happy and had the illusion that he was okay. He was sick minutes earlier and could not even get out of bed. After Aldonza brought Don Quixote back, he jumped out of bed and felt invincible. He was not worried about dieing anymore. He was Don Quixote de La Mancha. Sancho and Aldonza were glad to see Don Quixote back to normal.