Don Quijote de la Mancha ‘: Irony, grotesque and double interpretation of the protagonist
Don Quijote, in Miguel de Cervantes’s novel ‘Don Quijote de la Mancha’, represents the figure of the homonymous hero;The story focuses on his person, a permanent actor of lived actions and adventures, promoter of his own epic. But this figure of the chivalrous hero fades along the work that the reader can interpret, judge and measure his crazy vision of the world around him, where his ideal of cavalry vanishes when he turns peasants into princesses, posed incastles, or, at a culminating point for the reader to see how derailed that the protagonist can be with reality, mills with castles. Thus we will see throughout the book that the figure of the hero, a great defender of the weak, who would have to inspire Don Quixote for the ‘exploits’ that he proposes, always contrasts with this representation for the deformed look he has on reality andHis lack of common sense, making him the reader and other protagonists as a peculiar madman, far from the traditional cavalry figures such as Roland or Cid to which he intends to emulate at the beginning.
This attempt to resemble the heroes of the classical epic is very well reflected in chapter eight: at this point in history, Don Quixote, pushed by his thirst for adventures after having read too many cavalry works, went looking forof epic struggles against dragons and giants, good fortune and wealth, accompanied by his servant and companion, Sancho Panza. The bases of the traditional epic story are here, but they are the details, omnipresent and exaggerated, which confirm the reader the anti-hero statOther epochs in disuse, get Sancho to accompany him with his donkey in an adventure in which he does not believe or sees a pinch of logic, only by the promise of the position of governor by Hidalgo. Sancho is already seen by the reader as the co -star of history, the ‘sane’, representative of the vicissitudes of the human being (grotesque physical appearance, the character has ambition, which contrasts with his cowardice, his selfishness …) and the people of the people, with the continuous use of sayings, its own warning. The character ensures a real figure, to which the ‘popular’ reader can be identified in front of the ‘pathetic’ Don Quixote ’. Other characters, the barber, the bandits, or the regent of the inn, ensure this typical realism of the picaresca novel, present in Lazarillo de Tormes for example. In this chapter, we attend the zenith of this tragicomic relationship between both characters;In front of the ‘giants’, mirage caused by his crazy mind, he ignores the warning of his servant and undertakes a grotesque struggle, mounted on his skin and ridiculous horse. The character, who seemed to have a resemblance to the heroes of noble mount and white armor, becomes a parody of the cavalry literary genre;Don Quijote becomes the antagonist of what he intends to imitate, a mere parody of the knights to whom he venerates. Although the text initially respects the codes (plots, characters, honor …) of the genre, the progressive fall of its hero converts the novel into a ‘ridiculous’ work, as opposed to the genre that wanted to magnify, to the image of the’ RomanDe Renart ‘, irreverent parody of medieval literature as of the’ powerful ‘, we find a satire from which our Hidalgo figure is made. It is therefore through a discreditation processes for the irony that Cervantes uncopunnecessary and anchored in a revolutionized past that does not fit in its time. The anti-hero ranes with a world where the ‘wonderful’ no longer exists, there are no giants or other monsters to defeat, the objective of his adventure, ‘Dulcinea’, is of humble origin, which did not see in decades, and theReader, accustomed to the deformed vision of Quijote, can imagine, at least, any person, converted by his mind into a princess of good see and high society. To the title of the chapter (as the majority) lends to this interpretation;‘From the good event that the courageous Don Quijote had in the frightening and never imagined adventure of the wind mills, with other events worthy of happy interpretations’. This title, pompous, elegant, ‘epic’, prepared to call curiosity, contrasts with the reality of the adventures and conclusions that the reader can witness in the chapter;There was no ‘good event’, since it is pounced on the mill, he ends badly injured by the clash of one of the blades. While the story is real in the narrative, it contrasts again the use of the word ‘imagined’ with the double reality of the ‘hero’ (imagination against real world, with which he runs hard), or of ‘other worthy eventsOf happy interpretations’ when a struggle is actually narrated in vain, for no reason, against the friars, representatives of the moral order, even commenting ‘and it is great service of God to remove such bad seed on the face of the earth’. The chapter ends fighting with the passenger’s squire of the car, which we could consider another servant, losing even more chivalrous aura by fighting a weaker, without nobility. The only interpretation that can be taken out of the chapter is that Don Quixote fights nostalgia for ideals of greatness that have fallen into oblivion and are obscured by their exactions;In addition to losing his hero status, he could be considered as evil if it were not for his madness, argument that the author abuses to maintain a ‘balance’ in his character’s perception by the reader.
Through literature, many are the virtues that have characterized the heroes;The strength and commitment of Hercules, the courage and courage of Achilles, the intelligence of Ulysses, the greatness and magnanimity of Hector, the divine aid through a weapon or gift ‘superhuman’ … These virtues are necessary to fulfillA task out of the reach of the ordinary people: win wars, fight against the gods, rescue beloved from hell. Don Quijote, Hidalgo ‘Fifuentón’, obtained his birth title, without getting it for his own merits, never work, never flooring the battlefield. He lacks the force of the young and muscular hero, his madness prevents him from having a good value judgment, or the true magnanimity, and his equipment is a loss and ridiculous. However, its characterized effort reinforces its feature of brave, which, despite the warnings and danger of their adventures, does not doubt a second to launch. But it can also be interpreted as the total lack of sanity that prevents you from measuring, from your literary imaginary, the danger she faces. The Quijote gathers more characteristics of the Popular Literary and Cultural Anti-Héroe; A pawn Donald Duck, always blinded by his objective and the desire to be the hero, the figure of a low -mounted or low nobility authority that is fond of ridicule despite looking for what seems noble, very present in The performances of Louis de Funès (‘La Folie des Graurs’, where it represents a noble from Spain in search of its lost glory, with the support of Yves Montand, the films of the character ‘Le Gendarme’ or the adaptations of ‘fantomas’ , where they go on both a police figure that always ends up manipulated by his enemies and ends up being ridiculous despite representing morality and hero …), or that of a simple mind character who lets himself embark on an adventure that comes great And to which he fails to understand how he is, for futile reasons, as in the movie That a friend pushes Entren der a heroic act and ask for reparation for his honor. It becomes, similar to the Gregor Samsa of Kafka, into a despised hero, a peculiar being outside the life agreements in society, representative of the strange, but that with his suffering, and the difficulties he faces,Get a ‘metamorphosis’ that produces empathy and affection on the part of the reader despite his absurdities. Until a work like ‘Le Petit Prince’, which presents an anti-hero for his status as a child, he governs a thread director that we also found in Quijote: astonishment in the face of the reality of existence, and his limits forAct.
The comic tone of the work contrasts with the result of the ‘exploits’, caused by their lack of realism;They always end up despite their good faith, such as when you face the sheep, or freeing prisoners … This good faith is what moves the reader, who can interpret a basic personification of Miguel de Cervantes in the character, whose life had aspectssimilar to those of his character;They are both utopists, who are thrown into a vacuum, denying reality to prevail their ideals from another era. They spent their lives dreaming instead of living it, Don Quixote would renounce his condition as a gentleman when he woke up and return to reality. Sancho, on the other hand, will be sane throughout the work, and despite its ambition and personal defects, achieves the promised position and exercises it fairly, becoming wiser, philosophical thinker, and his good judgment.
Love towards Dulcinea, Leitmotiv of his adventure, can be considered as fictional, and sometimes serves excuses to get involved or not, causing not to help those who need it. It is a feeling that pushes it, that contributes to the epic, present in each heroic task he performs, but that makes no sense. Without contact with her, vague by La Mancha, land of poverty, letting himself be carried away by Rocinante without knowing where he took his trip, marked with numerous pauses that give a feeling of geographical immobility of the character. If this is already considered a gentleman made and right from the beginning, his adventures do not provide personal experience or growth as expected from a gentleman;He is not interested in the discovery, throughout the work he is dedicated to repeating already seen schemes, perfect unknown unknown struggles, the character gets carried away by any event that ‘ignites’, fights, and ends up almost always defeated frombad way. Nor does he learn from his mistakes, he continues to fight badly without the blows he receives, when any human educates and improves his abilities with the experience provided by repetition, he is caught in a circle where this same pattern repeats in vain. With this, the ‘chivalrous’ of Quijote stays in pure ‘postureo’, and even in an imposture if we consider the characteristics of the cavalry hero that we saw shortly before in the comment.
Comparing the work with others of the ‘same’ genre, we analyze Chrétien de Troyes’s work, which is presented as a type of historical ‘testimony’, as in ‘erec et enide’ where some elements confirm the seriousness of history and tied itTo the real world, despite some ‘mystical’ (giant …) elements, the story follows the legend of King Arturo and refers very often to religion and societal norms, the love of the hero and his destinrelationship, based on a mixture of submission and equality in the couple according to the events, but where the figure of the hero is preserved even in its ‘bad’ behaviors, which are justified. We can get these ‘contradictions’ the feeling of novel illusion, which ‘Don Quixote’ would denounce;In the first work, the narrator always ‘guide’ the reader to ensure the credibility of the hero, getting the unlikely and the real. In ‘Don Quijote’, whose madness and effort into ridiculYou must emulate, an example of what should not be done. He follows the agreements of the gender ‘to the letter’, reciting, adopting positions, without understanding the original sense. Imitates, as an imposter, and does not seek his own way. In addition, the character denies the reality of his failures, he, who, as a good Christian, should interpret the divine will to undertake a better or more virtuous path, prefers (with bad faith or lack of judgment) to blame theSorcerers, starting with Dulcinea’s ‘enchantment’ in chapter ten. The figure of these lovers of the dark arts will keep the reader, between the real and the unreal to the one who faces the Quijote in his psyche, touring a real world with ‘plausible’ characters in front of these figures of the natural south that are played frompoor hero.
We understand, to this point of the study, that the ‘madness’ of the character of Quijote occupies a good place in the loss of the hero condition (always according to the typical features we saw at the beginning) and its fall in misfortune as anti-heroe;Start when Hidalgo begins his passion for reading, forgetting ‘the exercise of hunting, and even the administration of his hacienda’, selling land of ‘sowing’, valuable, to buy his books. Of so many readings, ‘his brain walked’, ‘he came to lose his judgment’, and at this time his imagination with the literature consumed at this time is mixed.
But this ‘madness’ can hide the errata vision of a nostalgic poet on the world, a world that he faces for the first time, far from his initial laziness, when they mistreat him, and who never manages to bend his will with strength or deception;It should be noted that when, at the end of the work, he goes home after the defeat, he does so his own will, respecting the chivalrous pact to which he submitted, without deviating from his initial purpose, adopting and renewing the cavalry in his time. The reader, with this new interpretation, who always identified the other characters, can come to understand the poetic sense of the epic of Quijote and be reflected in it;Nostalgia of a better past world to long for, the childhood capacity to marvel and let yourself be excited about the world around us, denial of a cruel and hostile daily;He comes to understand that it is better to die sane and live crazy ’than spending his life trapped in the bubble of the Hidalgo, isolated from the world, whose only escape is the books of a time and humanity finished. The literature must be fictitious and glorious to manipulate the public and push him to adopt, such a Quijote, the point of view that he intends to defend. It can be particularly seen in the forty -seven chapter, ‘in the strange way Don Quijote de la Mancha was delighted, with other events’ made to distract the reader, and not educate him;Today, we could compare it with reality programs, which have no other purpose than to distract the viewer emptying the brain: fun if more. It shows us there a peculiar vision of the world where Cervantes lived, in a society where people did not help, judged, and to which the truth was not interested, where Quijote finally adopted this hero’s condition to fight, despite their lacks, against these aspects of society, still in force in our time. He becomes a bridge between the ancient hero and the modern current human, a character with the beginning of other times, to which he is governed, but with an entire world against him who barely listens, unlike Lazarillo, a child in front of theWorld, who accepts his destiny and decides to see only good for him and ensure a future of benefit despite giving up all ethics, unlike Quixote who renounces by moral obligation, and not for his own benefit.
In the end, we can deduce that the author’s goal was always to maintain this double interpretation of his character;An anti-hero, outside the traditional schemes of the beautiful, young, white armor and muscular mountainThe company of the Escudero Sancho Panza that pursues without honor the obtaining of its own benefit serving the cause of its ‘master’, useless battles from which it does not obtain either honor or experience, grotesque painting of a glorious and virtuous past but already forgotten and disappearedof the world in which he lives. The book caused teasing in his time by readers who saw him as a mere entertainment, a satire of a ‘pompous’ era and a "worse’ protagonist in all aspects that they, without seeing beyond the grotesque causedby the general description of Quijote, the constant irony, and its constant failure in what it undertakes. The Hidalgo that is represents the fall of a noble class of former gentlemen, epic fighters, whose descendants cannot exist in society outside the protection of their residences, dependent on literature to keep alive the memory of this glorious and moral time. But his role is deeper, and Cervantes uses the character as a satire of an idealized genre for generations when his values have been disappeared from the real world, as he could experience him in the first person during his life. Quijote becomes regret, and without knowing it, in the reflection of the bad of society, skilled when criticizing the alien, but unable to see the evils of his own behavior or the irony of his reader status’Incomplete’, which only comes part of the message in a first reading. The Quijote, finally lucid, sad, recognizes ‘I have a judgment already, free and clear, without the calliginous shadows of ignorance, which on him put my bitter and continues legend of the detestable books of the cavalries. I already know his nonsense and his emblections, and he does not weigh me but that this disappointment has come so late, that he does not leave me time to make some reward, reading others that are light of soul.’. Regrets having lost part of his life in this ‘crusade’ and already wants to take a path that is benefiting for ‘his soul’. It is victorious from his previous life, of what was his ‘madness’, and achieves a victorious ‘death’, worthy of a hero whose life, despite his misfortunes, was always carried with honor, love, sincerity and courage.
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