Gawain & Quixote
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Don Quixote are both tales of chivalry and knighthood, but the protagonists have differences and the authors view them differently. The main difference between Don Quixote and Gawain is that Quixote is a man of ideals and book-learned chivalry and knighthood. Gawain, on the other hand, is a man of action and represents the real thing when it comes to knights. The authors also view them differently. Quixote is viewed as an idealist in a world that is hardly ideal. His becomes disillusioned and renounces his idealism based on external circumstances. Gawain, on the other hand, is treated as the repository of all chivalrous qualities and he ends in humiliation and self-defeat, appalled at his lack of being able to live up to his own virtuous expectations. This analysis will demonstrate the similarities and differences between the two protagonists of Sir Gawain… and Don Quixote by analyzing various dialogue and action within the novels. The biggest difference between Don Quixote and Sir Gawain is that, even though they both become disillusioned with their ideals of knighthood and chivalry, Don Quixote does from the external world, whereas Sir Gawain is disillusioned by his lack of inner qualities in comparison to his ideal qualities. In Don Quixote, Quixote comes to his disillusionment mainly because he feels that there is some outside force that controls him. His locus of control is
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Quixote, blames himself for this. However, this does not make him forget that the cause of his weakness if a woman and her wiles. We see this when the Green Knight offers him to reconcile with his wife, “'who was your keen opponent...’; the affair is at an end. But not for Gawain. Bitterly he inveighs against both the ladies in the castle ‘who have so cleverly deceived their knight with their trickery,’ against the sex in general, responsible for the downfall of many great and wise men, Solomon amongst them, and against himself as a fool brought to grief through the wiles of women,” (Barron 21). Thus, Sir Gawain and Don Quixote are greatly disillusioned by their experiences with women. However, one blames an outside force for his disillusionment, while the other blames his own weaknesses.
There is another similarity drawn in both of these works. The main theme that the authors take in regards to their views of the characters is that, regardless of who or what is blamed for a man’s illusions, a man must come to find a balance or harmony between the right amount of realism and the right amount of idealism. To express this point in both books, the author’s use a counterpart to their protagonists, the antagonists. Sancho is
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Approximate Word count = 1787
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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