I found this week very interesting in both character changes and symbolism. This blog post will attempt to explain the connection between Homer’s trojan horse in the Iliad and the horse that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza ‘ride on the their quest’, as well as examine the change in Don Quixote and Sancho’s characters’ development.
One of the main things I noticed during these chapters is the continued references to outside stories, in particular Homer’s The Iliad and the trojan horse. In the Iliad, the wooden horse is a way for enemy troops to invade troy. It is used as a deceptor. In Don Quixote we see the same thing. The wooden horse represents deception. Instead of invading a kingdom, the wooden horse and attributes which create the sense of being in space, are used to invade Don Quixote and Sancho’s imaginations. The Duke and Duchess are the deceivers or ‘invaders’.
Another thing I noticed in these chapters is a change in Don Quixote’s and Sancho’s characters. Where as Sancho seems to be becoming more idealistic, Don Quixote seems to be becoming more realistic. In the wooden horse scene it is Don Quixote who is not as believing and Sancho who thinks that he is really flying in the heavens. In the first part of the novel this was the opposite. Don Quixote seems now to know that the imagination is not always the truth about what is real or what has happened in real life.
“As for me I can say I didn’t remove my blind fold either on the way up or on the way down, nor on the ground, nor did i see the heavens, nor the earth, nor the sea, nor the shore. It’s true that I felt I was going through the region of air, and that I was near the region of fire, but I can’t believe that we went past it. Since the region of fire is between the atmosphere of the moon and the highest region of air, we couldn’t have gotten to where the seven goats are without getting burned. And since we weren’t consumed by fire, either Sancho is lying or he was dreaming.”
“..it seemed to them that Sancho was ready to wander through the whole sky, and describe everything that happened, when in reality he hadn’t left the garden.”
As you can see from the above quotes, it is almost as if the roles have been switched. Don Quixote is level headed and calculating. He analyzed the situation almost as a scientist would. Sancho on the other hand has become a dreamer, seeing the world through a Quixotian lens. All in all I think that these chapters have become much more intellectually and culturally stimulating to the reader. I look forward to finishing the book.