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“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!” -Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote http://www.playbill.com/article/man-of-la-manchas-impossible-dreamer-richard-kiley-dead-at-76-com-80457 Having […]
Despite his undeniable and innate ability to lead, Sancho is constantly underestimated and belittled by others throughout the novel. During Sancho’s governorship, people assume his effectiveness in the position is a fluke and is due to the position itself, not to Sancho’s own qualities. Cervantes says, “All those who knew Sancho Panza marveled when they […]
In the documentary Lost in La Mancha, it becomes apparent that the director of the film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Terry Gilliam, is himself a modern reflection of the literary character don Quixote. According to his coworkers, Gilliam has a certain cinematic vision for the movie and continually attempts to achieve the impossible, drawing his […]
After being welcomed into the Duke and Duchess’s castle, don Quixote makes no secret of the fact that he is embarrassed by Sancho Panza’s behavior and social status. Without realizing that he too is a source of amusement for the Duke and Duchess, don Quixote repeatedly insults the intelligence and class of his loyal squire. […]
https://makeagif.com/gif/don-quixote-My5xCi “the laughing stock of all who meet [him] and even those who don’t” -the Ecclesiastic (739) The Duke and Duchess are amused and entertained by Sancho’s stories and bad manners, but the ecclesiastic makes fun of them both, calling don Quixote “don Stupid” and telling Sancho to “go home and raise [his] children” (739).
Through Don Quixote’s encounter with the lions in Chapter seventeen, Cervantes implicitly makes a political statement about Spanish nobility. Although discreet, Cervantes suggests that there exist several parallels between Spanish nobility, specifically the king, and the lions which don Quixote interacts with in this scene. From the outset, the lions are described as being […]
In the Second Volume don Quixote encounters the Knight of the Forest, also known as the Knight of the Mirrors, who serves (ineffectively) as a reality check for don Quixote by physically reflecting Don Quixote’s delusional behavior back to him. Similar to don Quixote, the Knight of the Mirrors has his own squire, identical Sancho […]
Unlike other characters throughout the novel, Sancho Panza seems to genuinely care for and respect Don Quixote as a person rather than simply dismissing or mocking him because of his delusional behavior. Sancho consistently tries his best to protect Don Quixote from humiliation and violence without expecting anything in return. Other characters, however, such as […]
Throughout the novel, the idea of gender fluidity, specifically cross-dressing, is juxtaposed constantly with don Quixote’s rigid and traditional standards towards women. This contrast serves to emphasize don Quixote’s outdated behaviors and hint at his misogynistic nature. In the novel, Cervantes attempts to blur the boundary between both genders with many instances of men and women […]
In his article “Games Telling Stories? A brief note on games and narratives,” Jesper Juul claims that “In the classical narratological framework, a narrative has two distinct kinds of time, the story time, denoting the time of the events told, in their chronological order, and the discourse time, denoting the time of the telling of events (in […]
