Don Quixote (summer reading post 2/5)

Throughout the novel, Cervantes intermittently interjects with his own comments on the story, especially in the second part. Certain details in the first part are inconsistent, as was the case with Sancho's donkey or rather the theft of said donkey. Cervantes notes this in part two readily, even under the precept of the story of our eccentric knight-errant being a work of nonfiction. While the novel definitely references true occurrences (such as the publication and distribution of the first part), the author takes liberties in his story telling. 

"In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance on the lance-rack..." (1).

Even on the first line, Cervantes takes a very conspicuous casual tone while simultaneously erasing any doubt of this novel's seriousness. There will be none of it. Beyond the whimsical adventures of Don Quixote that we will become acquainted with, Cervantes (or Cide Hamete Benengeli as Cervantes would have us believe) also breaks the fourth wall (a term, to my surprise, my seventh grade English teacher was not learned of). In the world in which his misadventures exist, Don Quixote manages to become aware of a published piece sharing the ordeals he had partaken in. By doing so, Don Quixote becomes a self-referential book and the characters, while not surmising they exist only within the realm of fiction, realize that there is an audience witnessing their travels and trials to stop those travels. This, to say the least, is a writing technique rarely seen as it completely destroys some sense of immersion which is often counter productive when authors built their narratives. However, Cervantes's use of breaking the fourth wall fulfills his purpose of crafting Don Quixote as the character he is.

Don Quixote (summer reading post 1/5)

First impressions of Don Quixote

"By these words of his the travelers were able to satisfy themselves of Don Quixote's being out of his senses and of the form of madness that overmastered him" (Cervantes 52).

       De Cervantes opens his story with a rather novel character. The self-christened Don Quixote is an eccentric man at best and I hesitate to label him as a protagonist in the traditional sense, despite his position in the novel clearly fitting that role. Though well educated in the legends and lore of the knights of the past, the knight-errant has little social understanding of the world he lives in, instead believing to be enveloped in a knight's legend, a knight's world. His vision of knighthood is also incredibly romanticized. Rather than as mercenaries as knights were in true history, Don Quixote envisions them as something much more idealistic: a yearner for a maiden and a righter of wrongs. However, this ideal clouds his perception of reality: he was convinced in one of his early forays that giants had been turned to windmills by a sorcerer's magic. His apparent insanity is instantly recognized by those whom he meets during his travels; the fanciful speech he speaks in being a dead giveaway. By seeking adventure, he also seeks conflict and makes it where there was none before. He intermittently attacks other travelers, often invoking the name of his Dulcinea of Toboso and accusing the target party of a crime that had not been committed. Evidently, Don Quixote is not on the side of any virtue and his story involves mishap after mishap, a fact he does not notice. As such, his decisions are heavily influenced by a naïveté stoked by the books of chivalry that kindled his interests in knighthood. Those very same books were the reason he set out for his second sally, as they burned and charred away.