Don Quixote [Day 6]

1.

I don't think that Don Quixote has become 'de-quixoticized' at all in the final chapters. I think that throughout the first part of the novel, he has lost some of his naivety and innocence, but he has still retained his imaginary world and continues to live in it. As they are riding along in the ox-cart, Sancho bursts out: "'God save us all and his Holy Mother too!' Sancho exclaimed. 'How can you be so thick-skulled and empty-headed that you can't see that what I'm saying is the plain truth, and that it's more through roguery than enchantment that you're in this mess and this cage?'" (ch xlviii, p448). If anyone has become de-quixoticized, it is Sancho Panza. He is able to recognize the situation that he and his master are in, and he refuses to play along and believe that his master is under an enchantment. Don Quixote, on the other hand, still firmly believes in knighthood and sorcery. He refuses to agree with Sancho's argument, and instead states: "'What you say is true, Sancho,' replied Don Quixote, 'but I have already told you that enchantment can take many different forms, and it could be that these have changed in the course of time, so that what happens nowadays is that the enchanted do all the things that I do, even though formerly they did not'" (ch xlix, p449). He knows that the times have changed and knight errantry isn't all that it used to be, but he still believes that he is a knight.

I think that Cervantes leaves Don Quixote in his imaginary world because he has become such an endearing character. There was a point, in the middle of the first part of the novel, when I didn't like Don Quixote because I thought he mistreated Sancho. However, towards the end, he is so innocently funny that it's hard not to become attached to him as a character. I think that the breaks from his story and the insertion of side stories, although I thought they detracted from the novel, helped in becoming more acquainted with the main character. It also helped because the ending of the first part was quite sad, when Don Quixote is brought back home. "He was peering at them through unfocused eyes, and couldn't fathom where on earth he was" (ch lii, p474).

3.

My most favorite part of this entire story was when Don Quixote, in chapter xlix, took a firm stand against the canon who was slandering his books of chivalry. Don Quixote was always a firm believer in knight errantry and chivalry, but he had never taken so firm a stand as when he did on p453: "'Well, for my part,' replied Don Quixote, 'I consider that it is you who are out of your senses and under some spell, for you have taken it upon yourself to utter such blasphemies against what has been so well received in the world and so widely accepted as the truth that anyone who denies it, as you do, deserves the same punishment that you say you inflict on books that annoy you when you read them. Because trying to persuade anyone that Amadis and all the other knight adventurers that pack the histories never existed is like trying to persuade him that the sun does not give out light, and that ice is not cold, and that the earth does not sustain us'". Everyone has spent the entire first part of the novel calling the hidalgo crazy, attacking him for his ideas or playing along with them to appease him. No one has ever believed him to be in an entirely right state of mind. However, I think this quote was an excellent way of having Don Quixote turn on his attackers. Maybe it's us, the audience, who are crazy. Just because the hidalgo is living in his imagination does not mean he is insane, and should be treated as such. It has been pointed out that he is an intelligent man who can form clear and lucid arguments, and I think it is unfair that the priest, who called him such things and actually enjoyed listening to him speak, would be so malicious as to put him in a cage and drag him home like a prisoner.