Cervantes’ Don Quixote: Themes, Characters, and Structure
Don Quixote: A Literary Analysis
Don Quixote is a seminal work of Spanish literature. Part 1 appeared in 1605 under the title “The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha” and consists of a prologue, poems burlesque, and 52 chapters in four parts. Part 2 was published in 1615 under the name “The Ingenious Knight Don Quixote,” consisting of a prologue and 74 chapters. A year before, in 1614, the Second Volume of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha appeared, signed by Alonso Fernandez Avellaneda. This Quixote was apocryphal.
Preface: A Critique of Chivalry
The author criticizes the novels of chivalry, which is the main theme of the play. In Don Quixote, Cervantes parodies the romance of chivalry to criticize the genre, making it an essential ingredient of the book.
Structure of the Work
The nobleman Alonso Quijano is driven mad by reading books of chivalry and decides to resurrect the dead and errant knighthood, becoming Don Quixote, and Dulcinea, his love, goes on the road in search of fame. El Quijote develops an action organized into three main outputs:
- Check out the village: The first time Don Quixote leaves home alone; in the other two outputs, he is accompanied by his faithful squire, Sancho Panza; in the preliminaries of the third output, the bachelor Samson Carrasco appears.
- Serious Adventure: Don Quixote is confronted with reality because of his distorted perception (mills = giants) and fails, often receiving blows and sticks. In the third exit, he distorts the reality of others.
- Return to the village: The three outputs conclude with the return of Don Quixote: the first two in harsh conditions, the last in death.
Space and Time
The narrative is chronological and linear. Temporal references are scarce, inconsistent, and nonsensical.
- Part One: Walk to Sierra Morena La Mancha and stop at the sale.
- Part Two: Move in Aragon and Catalonia, and stand in the palace of the dukes.
Characters
Don Quixote
DON QUIJOTE is a tall, thin, old man (compared to the young hero of chivalry), choleric, worshipful, a great reader, single, solitary, brave, and impulsive. The focus of the work is madness. Don Quixote wants and believes himself to be a knight-errant; he is the “mad sane” who succeeds despite his failure.
Sancho Panza
Sancho Panza is short and paunchy, rude, illiterate, married, practical, peaceful, a farmer from La Mancha who agrees to serve Don Quixote because of his simplicity and the promised reward of an island.
Dulcinea
DULCINEA is a figment of Don Quixote’s imagination, created from Aldonza Lorenzo, a strong and ugly peasant woman whom he has seldom seen and with whom he has never spoken.
Themes
Literature, idealism, freedom, love… Different facets:
- Critical: Literary judgments and theories. It criticized the novels of chivalry.
- Reading: Some characters in the novel read.
- Writing: The novel is written literature. Cervantes is also mentioned in the novel.
Types of Speech and Languages
El Quijote has been characterized as the first polyphonic novel, i.e., a work in which there are many different languages. The Quixote evokes and ironically uses literary genres and styles of the time.