The Don Quixote By Miguel De Cervantes Essay

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.

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

La Ventana de Los Cielos is a nonprofit organization where they offer a variety of activities for children and adolescents with special needs. The mission of this facility is to promote and improve the physical and mental functions of those with special needs. This facility has 4 different stations where the children rotate and are able to participate in each station. Every station focuses on a specific function such as cognition, motor skills, sensory and social skills with the goal to enhance each function. Services offered at La Ventana include horse-based activities, zoo-interaction, aqua-experiences, music and arts and crafts. The standard ratio of staff to patients is one on one. Although there are times where there might not be enough volunteers or not enough kids that attend on a particular day, a volunteer may be left without a child or may have to work with 2 kids. I feel that the standards of ratio of one on one is adequate because it allows the staff to give the child full attention and are able to get the most out of that child for that particular day.

When he is advised to stop his knight errantry, Don Quixote is able to protest with legitimate reasons on glory and his own personality. ”’There are two roads to riches and honor: one is letters, the other is arms. I myself am more arms than letters, so I am forced to follow that road. You will be wearying yourselves if you try to persuade me not to want for myself what heaven wants for me’” (Cervantes, 524). It is difficult to believe that Don Quixote is not sound of mind at times, which causes people to trust in his decisions. He’s clearly able to think for himself and defend his thinking with logic. But although Don Quixote views himself as independent, his loyal follower, Sancho Panza, disagrees. “‘I say he isn't at all villainous, he’s as innocent as the babe unborn, he couldn't hurt a fly, he only wants to do good to everyone and there isn't an ounce of malice in him and it's because he's so simple that I love him from the bottom of my heart, and can't bring myself to leave him, however many silly things he does’” (Cervantes, 567). From someone who follows Don Quixote day and night, Sancho has had multiple experiences with his wayward master that strengthens his opinion. From what he says, it seems that the only reason why Don Quixote is able to survive in a world unbefitting of a madman is through Sancho. His master is only trying to do good

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.

On reading Beloved by Toni Morrison and Don Quixote by Kathy Acker, there seem to be quite a few similarities in themes and characters contained in these texts, the most prevalent of which seems to be of love and language as a path to freedom. We see in Acker’s Don Quixote the abortion she must have before she embarks on a quest for true freedom, which is to love. Similarly, in Morrison’s Beloved, there is a kind abortion, the killing of Beloved by Sethe, which results in and from the freedom that real love provides. And in both texts, the characters are looking for answers and solutions in these "word-shapes" called language.

To Don Quixote, essential parts of being a knight are having amour and a shield, owning a steed, having the values of chivalry, having a squire, and courting/saving a woman. Don Quixote's lucidity towards tales of chivalry brings about improbable situations such as when he tried to make a helmet out of pasteboard (5). Most of this exert follows the "warped logic" genre of satire with Don Quixote not seeing the ludicrous actions he commits. One example of these actions is when he decides to find, "Someone to call his Lady," which would turn out to be someone who he loved at one time without her knowing nor giving it thought (8). For Quixote, the books he read where everything, so much so that they became his life with him even, "Almost entirely

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).

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:

The novel Don Quixote, by Miguel Cervantes, is an exploration into the idea of created reality. Cervantes, through the character of Don Quixote, illustrates to readers how we as human beings often make reality to be whatever we want it to be.

[is] Dorotea” in disguise, it does not fit into Quixote’s frame of thinking and is therefore rejected, “Can you be in your right mind?” This irony is used by Cervantes to introduce the reader to the issue of perspective. In this world there are two paradigms which are followed: one is to see the world through the fantastical and idealistic madness of Quixote, and the other is to view it through the realism adopted by the other characters of the text. Quixote’s madness creates a world where everything is taken at face value, not allowing the idea of deception to exist. When the issue of deception arises, he formulates alternate explanations which are in keeping with his perspective, stating that “...everything that happens in this place is brought about by enchantment.” The alternate view which is held by most of the other players is that, “anyone could see when he said that those windmills were giants, and those friars’ mules were dromedaries and those flock of sheep were enemy armies”. The hyperbolic images in Sancho’s sarcasm give the reader an insight into the sheer vastness of Quixote’s generalisation of his belief. It is Quixote’s differing school of thought which Cervantes uses to establish his alienation from the sanity of the constructed world. Contrastingly, In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is the voice of sanity in the phantasmagorical setting of Wonderland. However, this also

In the story Pierre Menard presents two options how he could write his Quixote. The first option is that he, Pierre Menard, will become Cervantes, in that way that he will learn to speak 17th century Spanish, he will learn the history and examine the circumstances that were surrounding Cervantes while he was writing his Quixote. Of course, this option is denied as impossible (ironically, Borges says it too easy.)