Who Is Don Quixote Insane

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.

In the Medieval Period, knights dedicated their lives to following the code of chivalry. In Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, a number of characters performed chivalrous acts to achieve the status of an ideal knight. Their characteristics of respect for women and courtesy for all, helpfulness to the weak, honor, and skill in battle made the characters King Arthur, King Pellinore, and Sir Gryfflette examples of a what knights strove to be like in Medieval society. Because of the examples ofchivalry, Le Morte d’Arthur showed what a knight desired to be, so he could improve theworld in which he lived.

Throughout the book, the Count of Monte Cristo, written by Alexandre Dumas, the main character, the Count of Monte Cristo has a certain je ne sais quoi. He defines a certain way, just like the rest of the characters in the text do, as well as every single character ever written. That is because of his archetype. An archetype is a type of character, detail, image, or situation that continually reappears throughout literature.

As I was reading this chapter, I could not stop thinking about the stupid thing I knew Don Quixote was going to try and do. So far in the novel, he has done stupid thing after stupid thing, but they were all comical to a certain extent. When I got to this chapter, I could help feel anything but frustration towards Don Quixote, and even Cervantes himself.

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.

While Gilgamesh and Achilles were fearsome warriors pitted against the most fearsome and ferocious beasts in their land, poor Don Quixote is only a poor gentleman who badly wants to be a hero. He is, and should be, an “anti-hero” because he is delusional toward the world around him. His infatuation with books of chivalry leads him to attack a windmill, which then “defeats” him and badly injures him. He attacks a flock of sheep, the most harmless and defenseless of all animals, because he thinks that they are a broad army full of warriors of old. He is often stupid, leading himself to charge “”into the middle of [a] flock of sheep” like the life of a thousand people depended on him (Cervantes 450). This man perfectly defines an anti-hero, and

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'

There are many chivalric ideals pursued in Don Quixote that were also demonstrated in The song of Roland. Of the many chivalric ideals, three of these would include having glorious battles with a cruel giant, performing good deeds, and encountering processes or women in distress. With regards to battles with a cruel giant, Don Quixote reads, “He would remark that the Cid Ruy Diaz had been a very good knight, but there was no comparison between him and the Knight of the Flaming Sword, who with a single backward stroke had cut in held two fierce and monstrous giants” (Mack, M., 1987, p. 1183). Don Quixote displays the chivalric ideal of performing good deeds as the text reads, “He had much good to say for Morgante who, though he belonged

“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).

Likewise, both Don Quixote and "The Wasteland" are profoundly nostalgic and backward-looking works in tone, while still embracing modern attitudes and narrative structures. The purpose of the quest is unclear to the protagonist, but it is fundamentally one which seeks to restore an ancient rather than a new order. Quixote wishes to restore an ancient

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

It establishes Don Quixote as mad, and gives readers and characters around him insight into the way he chooses to perceive the world. Beyond manifesting as a way to uphold Don Quixote’s chivalric code and serving as an instrument to reflect unreliable narration, perhaps there is a function of delusions that transcends and melds from the two described. is this: Tthere may be a slight beauty in utilising a defective narrative and a metalepsis to describe a lopsided story, of a hunter in his mid-fifties who pertinaciously chose to pursue his passions, and of a knight with a broken helmet that persists to consciously live in his own

     Don Quijote was a tall, skinny “wanna-be” who found himself morally obligated to involve himself in other people’s business for the sole purpose of acting as a proper knight errant would. Although he believes that his “battles” help solve situations (though the results is usually the opposite), what it comes down to is that he wants to be famous, to be in love with his woman, to be accomplished, recognized, and adored. Therefore, Don Quijote’s motives are self-serving, and not “by-the-book” as a knight errant should be. “As much for the sake of his own greater honor as for his duty to the nation, he decided to turn himself into a knight errant...” (p. 15) The thing was, this was how knights generally were - a

     Despite his delusions, however, Don Quixote is fiercely intelligent and, at times, seemingly sane. No single analysis of Don Quixote’s character can adequately explain the split between his madness and his sanity. It may be possible that Don Quixote really does know what is going on around him and that he merely chooses to ignore the world and the consequences of his disastrous actions. At several times in the novel, Cervantes validates this suspicion that Don Quixote may know more than he admits. On the other hand, we can read Don Quixote’s character as a warning that even the most intelligent and otherwise practically minded person can fall victim to his own foolishness.