The Quest Narrative: 'Don Quixote' and 'The Wasteland'

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.

. The day of my Quinceanera started early. I had just turned 15 and it was the birthday I had always dreamed of. I was always a dama in other Quinceanera’s, but now it was time for my own celebration. In Mexican culture, a dama is just like a bridesmaid. I had 14 of my closest friends as my dama’s to be a part of my “court of honor”. All 14 girls wore beautiful hot pink dresses and had polished hairstyles. The girls looked like beautiful dolls. When my mother was a little girl she had two Quinceanera’s. One celebration took place in Mexico and the other here in California. Looking back at my

Summary: In chapter one, Foster begins giving an example of a quest; he explains how a trip to the store is considered a quest. Foster provides five key details included in a quest: a quester, a place to go, a reason to go there, challenges and tests on the way, and a real reason to go there (Foster 3). Furthermore, Foster explains how the “stated” reason is not the reason to go on the quest. The quester goes on the quest believing it is their life mission. Quote: “The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (Foster 4). Personal Example: The Epic of Gilgamesh is an example of a quest. Gilgamesh is the protagonist of the poem who makes a long quest in search for immortality.

The first chapter of How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster is about the hero’s quest. Foster starts the chapter with a fictious example of a story with a protagonist called Kip that although on the surface seems like a search for bread, is actually an example of a knight’s encounter with nemesis, a quest. He then goes on to discuss the five components of a quest and how the parts often vary and are hidden in different forms. One of the primary take-aways from the chapter however is how the real reason for a quest is never the one stated but rather self-knowledge, the idea that the purpose for the quest is ultimately not the stated reason but rather a quest of education. Foster argues that the stated reason is more of an excuse for embarking on the quest, rather than the end goal and discusses

The aspects of quest are present in most literary work found today. An excellent example

The concept of the Quest can be easily applied to John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.

Throughout both ‘Engleby’ and ‘Selected Poems’ there is a prevailing sense of ‘apprehension of the tenuousness of human existence’ which is evident in the protagonists’ confining inability to communicate with the world around them, as seen in Prufrock’s agonised call, ‘so how should I presume?’. ‘The Wasteland’ was written by Eliot to ‘address the fragmentation and alienation characteristic of [contemporary] culture’, questioning mankind’s ability to move forward into cohesiveness despite the ‘more pronounced sense of disillusionment and cynicism’ which came about as a ‘direct

This is the story on how I embarrassed myself in front of many people at my quinceañera. First off, many people may or may not know what a quinceañera is. It's a traditional mexican party that a 15 year old girl celebrates, its meaning is it's a transformation from being a young girl to a woman. This all began spring of last year. My family and I began to plan my party. We searched for decoration that corresponded to what color I chose for my party. It ended up being the color pink, although it looked more of a coral. Around two weeks later we began to do decorations, by this time the salon was already rented out and was ready to fill it with items and get everything set up. For my decorations I had made a flower bowl with pink and white roses

In Mexico, my mother never had her Quinceanera because of her family’s socioeconomic status, so she saved up enough money with my dad to guarantee I lived the dream she never experienced. When I was five years old, my mom hosted a mini-Quinceanera, making sure I fluttered around in a blue, long dress and danced with the boys of my preschool class. A Quinceanera has four components: the big dress every Hispanic girl dreams to be in, a big salon the Quinceanera dances in, the court of honor, and of course the overall significance of the Hispanic teenager becoming a woman. Ten years later, I fluttered around my red, bigger and longer dress, with small pearls on my corset. At the end of the night, my father placed heels on my feet to represent

They get on a boat, and don’t go very far. Don Quixote believes they have travelled two thousand miles. The boat reaches some mills. The owner of the boat appear and Don Quixote pays him. They find a Duchess and a Duke hunting. Sancho goes to talk to the Duchess and she welcomes him, as she has read the first part of the book. Don Quixote and Sancho ride with them to their castle. Don Quixote believes the Duke is a knight-errant. When they have Dinner the Duke forces Don Quixote to sit at the head of the table. The duchess takes a particular liking to Sancho for embarrassing his master with his silliness. The servants wash Don Quixote’s head and pretend to run out of water. The Duke forces them to wash his head the same way so he does not get

Message of Hope in Eliot's The Waste Land, Gerontion, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” depicts a definitive landscape of desolation, reflecting the damaged psyche of humanity after World War I. Relationships between men and women have been reduced to meaningless social rituals, in which sex has replaced love and physical interaction has replaced genuine emotional connection. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” goes a step further in depicting these relationships: the speaker reveals a deep sexual frustration along with an awareness of morality, in which he is conscious of his inability to develop a connection with women yet cannot break free from his silence to ask “an overwhelming question” (line 10). “The Wasteland” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” together illustrate that

In this discussion of Eliot’s poem I will examine the content through the optic of eco-poetics. Eco- poetics is a literary theory which favours the rhizomatic over the arborescent approach to critical analysis. The characteristics of the rhizome will provide the overarching structure for this essay. Firstly rhizomes can map in any direction from any starting point. This will guide the study of significant motifs in ‘The Waste Land.’ Secondly they grow and spread, via experimentation within a context. This will be reflected in the study of the voice and the language with which the poem opens. Thirdly rhizomes grow and spread regardless of breakage. This will allow for an

In T.S. Eliot’s most famous poem The Wasteland, a bleak picture of post-war London civilization is illuminated. The inhabitants of Eliot’s wasteland are living in a morally bankrupt and spiritually lost society. Through fragmented narration, Eliot recalls tales of lost love, misplaced lust, forgone spirituality, fruitless pilgrimages, and the “living dead”- those who shuffle through life without a care. These tales are the personal attempts of each person to fulfill the desires which plague them, though none ever stop to consider that what they want may not be what they need, nor do they consider why it is they feel they must do these things. Through studies in Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective

Eliot’s creative use of poetic form is one of the hallmarks of “The Wasteland” and greatly contributed to the overall tone and mood. The structure of the poem is uneven and almost discordant. It rapidly transitions between various unrelated scenes at a rapid pace. For example, “I read, much of the night and go south in the winter/What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow…” (19-20) illustrates an abrupt shift in the setting which includes the speaker, time, and place. In the first line, the reader is listening to the story of Marie. In the second line, however, the reader has been transported to a desert: a literal wasteland. This choppy stream of images emphasizes a message about society: like the poem, society does not progress smoothly and can even be unpredictable.