Don Quixote: Analysis of Themes, Structure, and Style
Don Quixote: Argument
Don Quixote: Argument: A Don Quixote, driven mad by reading books of chivalry, believes himself to be a medieval knight in the 17th century. He takes to the roads with the aim to “fix wrongs” and encounters the scorn and aggression of his contemporaries. Only Sancho Panza, motivated by the promise of wealth, accompanies him on his crazy adventures.
Don Quixote: Structure
Structure: The adventures revolve around Don Quixote’s three journeys:
- 1st (Chapters 1-6): He is alone and not fully aware of his chivalrous persona, believing himself a hero of ballads.
- 2nd (Chapters 7-52): He has a squire, Sancho. The protagonist systematically views reality through the lens of chivalry. This part includes stories featuring other characters and a short novel entitled “The Curioso.”
- 3rd (Entire Part 2): Don Quixote is a famous person. The readers of his adventures become real people who make fun of him, such as the Duke, in whose house the characters spend time in Barcelona. In this city, Don Quixote is defeated by the Knight of the White Moon, who condemns him to return home, where he regains his reason before death. The constant dialogues between knight and squire reflect the rich humanity of both characters, who influence each other throughout this second part.
Don Quixote: Narrator
Narrator: Through multiple narrators (perspective), Cervantes parodies the old scheme of the chivalric novel with its variety of sources and authors. We distinguish four main voices in the story:
- The Arab historian Benengeli Hamet, the original author of the story.
- The Moorish aljamiado, translator from Arabic into Spanish.
- Cervantes, who commissioned the translation after finding the Arabic manuscripts in Toledo.
- Partial narrators of interspersed stories.
Don Quixote: Time and Area
Time: The action unfolds linearly from Don Quixote’s three journeys, with no specific historical references. This creates a mythic and diffuse temporal location, as in most stories of chivalry.
Area: The location of the gentleman’s adventures is not specified, except for the end in Barcelona. This is another way to demystify the exotic locations of chivalric novels, such as Constantinople, England, or the Holy Land.
Don Quixote: Language and Style
Language and Style: Cervantes demonstrates his taste for a plain and simple style in different parts of the book. However, the novel presents obvious expressive originality:
- The importance of dialogue.
- Burlesque imitation of chivalric language.
- Variety of unique expressive records.
- Attention to proverbs and proverbial phrases, through which the life experiences of the protagonists are shown. This is defined as polyphony.
Don Quixote: Interpretations and Meaning
Interpretations and Meaning:
- A book about books: In addition to parodying novels of chivalry, Don Quixote features a constant presence of literature (metaliterature) through dialogues between characters, interspersed stories, narratives that play with different types, and comments about other literary works.
- Contrast between idealism and realism: Embodied respectively in Don Quixote (generous, sober, and spiritual) and Sancho (interested, gluttonous, and materialistic), but in the second part, the two influence each other.
- Projection of Cervantes’ personality: His youthful enthusiasm and subsequent disappointments at maturity would correspond to the repeated disappointments of the gentleman.
- Image of Spanish decline: Already evident in the early seventeenth century and represented in the novel by Don Quixote’s actions, almost always doomed to ridicule or failure.
- Exploring human nature: Its deepest and most sensitive hues are demonstrated in the wonderful dialogues that the two protagonists maintain at every step.
- Existential Pedagogy: Cervantes shows himself to have assimilated the wealth of knowledge of the humanists of the Renaissance on how to deal with life.