DON QUIXOTE

Spain, at the time of Cervantes, was just emerging from the Middle Ages, later than, say, Italy. It was a time when tales of knights-errant and the age of chivalry had just about glutted the market for those who cared about those things. So, Cervantes created Don Quixote, a "different" sort of knight, and one where the author could create his own opinions about society and the state of affairs in his native Spain.

Don Quixote was actually a gentleman named Alonso Quixano, who lived in a village in La Mancha. He spent his time hunting and tending to his estate. But, he becomes so obsessed with stories of knighthood and books about chivalry, that he becomes "mad" (or, does he?) and decides to abandon his former life, and wander the land as an errant knight, now calling himself Don Quixote. Sancho Panza, a peasant in Quixano's village, who is convinced to come along as Don Quixote's squire, accompanied him. Why would a simple peasant up and leave? Because the "knight" promised him the governorship of any island he conquered. What is somewhat strange is that, throughout the novel, Sancho plays tricks on his "master" but often ignores his common sense to be Quixote's faithful follower.

Don Quixote is a novel about the rupture between words and meaning, between names and identity. Reality depends on the ability to name, to identify, and to tell a story faithfully. The rupture evident in the novel suggests that there may be mo

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ow, we often talk about someone fighting a losing cause or being irrational about his beliefs as "tilting at windmills". "Fortune is arranging matters better for us than we could have shaped our desires ourselves... for lookà. where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle." (p. 18) Quixote will have none of this "they're just windmills" explanation. They are giants, and knights must always do battle with giants. Now, we see the comedy of this poor old man in his armor, swinging his lance against windmills. What does Cervantes see? Landowners having to fight giants- men of money and power, appointed by the royal court, as a favor, to take hereditary lands and put up structures and do with the land as they will. What can we modern readers see? The challenge of the "little guy" against impersonal corporations who intrude on our lives. Sure, the novel was written in 1604, but the beauty and genius of Cervantes was that you could read almost any sort of modern reality into something written nearly five hundred years earlier. And then, we also come to a scene where Don Quixote is slashing those bags of red wine. "Stand, thief, brigand, villain" (p. 134) says the old Don. It is s
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1237
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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