Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes: summary, characters and analysis of the book
Don Quijote of La Mancha, whose original title is The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha, is a novel of the burlesque literary subgenre. It was written by the Spanish Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) and published in two installments: The first volume in 1605 and the second in 1615.
Is considered Don Quijote of La Manchathe first modern novel Y masterpiece of Spanish literature. In it, through the parody of chivalric novels, Miguel de Cervantes presents a critique of 16th century society. The humor and the use of proverbs and popular sayings give dynamism to the novel.
Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza they are the main protagonists of the work. Don Quixote is a nobleman, a man of the upper middle class, and Sancho Panza is his neighbor, of humble origin and little education.
In don Quixote's imagination there is always Dulcinea del Toboso, an idealized love and the reason that makes him feel like a true knight-errant.
Don Quijote of La Mancha, the most universal book in Spanish literature, is one of those timeless novels that crosses our path at some point in our lives. Many readers consider this work as the best book of all time.
But what is really the Book Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes? What does it mean? What impact has it had since its publication?
Summary of the novel
The book recounts the adventures and misadventures of a 50-year-old gentleman named Alonso Quijano, who decides to be a knight errant like those featured in his favorite chivalric books.
Don Quixote's exploits are contained in two volumes that they narrate three outputs. On the one hand, the "First part" called as The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha It is made up of 52 chapters and it contains the first outing and the second exit.
The second volume, whose title is The ingenious Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, contains 74 chapters in which the third exit.
How does the book of Don Quixote begin?
This is the famous phrase that begins Don Quijote of La Mancha:
In a place in La Mancha, whose name I do not want to remember, not long ago lived a nobleman of the spear and shipyard, old shield, skinny nag and running greyhound ...
First outing
He covers the first eight chapters of the first volume of the book. Here begins the supposed madness of Don Quixote. The protagonist decides to become a knight errant by taking his old horse Rocinante to tour Spain.
Don Quixote goes out alone in search of being a knight. During the tour, the protagonist unleashes his imagination and reveals his madness by deforming the reality that surrounds him.
On the one hand, he mistakes a sale for a castle, a landlord for the lord of the castle, who knights him and plays along.
After achieving his mission, Don Quixote goes in search of adventures and tries to solve injustices. One of them is the abuse of power by Juan Haldudo, a farmer, with his young man Andrés from him.
Another of his adventures takes place with some Toledo merchants, when he wants them to recognize Dulcinea del Toboso as the most beautiful lady in the world. In the end, Don Quixote is beaten by the merchants.
The adventure does not last long as his neighbors find him screaming his war wounds, so they take him home.
There his niece and the housewife consider that the books are the reason for the hidalgo's madness. Later, the priest and the barber decide to burn some copies that he has in the library.
Finally, Don Quixote chooses Sancho Panza as his squire and promises him that if he accompanies him, the governor of an island will do so.
Second outing
It covers the rest of the first volume of the book. In this outing he already appears together with the second protagonist: his squire Sancho Panza. Sancho decides to take his donkey and accompany Don Quixote on his adventures after much insistence on the part of the alleged knight-errant.
In this second outing take place the famous stories about the windmills as giants, the sales confused with castles, the commoners who become princesses and the puppets into Moors. This second part is considered the most comic and satirical of the entire work.
Third exit
It covers the second volume of the book. It recounts the misadventures, mockery and deceptions of these two adventurers. Here, the bachelor Sansón Carrasco will be in charge of bringing Don Quixote back to sanity, convincing him to finally leave his fantasy adventures as a knight-errant and return to his land.
His first attempt, recounted in Don Quixote's second outing, was to disguise himself as the Knight of Mirrors, but he was defeated.
In the second volume, Samson disguises himself as the Knight of the White Moon and challenges him to a duel, claiming that his maiden is more beautiful than Dulcinea. Don Quixote accepts the duel and when he loses he keeps his word to leave his adventures for a year.
When he returns home he falls ill and seemingly returns to sanity apologizing for all the trouble caused and asking to make his will to die in peace.
Novel analysis
Some aspects that are fundamental when talking about the work of Cervantes have to do with the themes that he addresses (from love and freedom to the society of his time and his own literature), the popular language that the author uses when making his characters speak and the impact of this book on our modern conception of literature hundreds of years later.
Let us analyze here some of the most relevant aspects of this novel considered one of the heights of universal literature.
Novel themes
If this culminating work by Miguel de Cervantes stands out for something, it is for its thematic abundance, and the issues embodied in the two volumes are innumerable. These are some themes that are hidden between its pages:
Literature
The criticism of the existing literature at the time is evident, especially the medieval chivalric novels, in fact it is a constant parody of this genre. How does he do it?
On the one hand, Cervantes ridicules chivalric books by building a character whose madness is directly related to reading those books.
On the other hand, he does something that no one has done to date and that is, for the first time, it is the character who transforms the action and not the other way around. That is, the characters are more important than the facts.
16th century society
The author also questions the society of the time, which he knew first-hand.
The "madness" of the protagonist could be an excuse to make a complaint to the Spanish reality of the moment, unequal, hierarchical and corrupt, in the middle of the prediction of the Modern Age. He does it through characters of all social classes, customs and popular beliefs.
Love
The indispensable requirement for any gentleman is to have a lover. That is why Don Quixote, a prisoner of his madness, idealizes a woman to love. Dulcinea is a necessity for the protagonist because of his status as a knight, but she is also the engine that drives him to start his adventures.
In this way, Cervantes also ridicules courtly love, very present in chivalric books.
Freedom
The novel itself is a hymn to freedom. Thanks to her, Cervantes broke with the established and laid the foundations of the contemporary novel.
The author used a "very sane madman", as is the protagonist of the book, to deal openly with taboos and criticize while avoiding censorship. Is there anything more free for an author? For Cervantes, this novel, perhaps, was synonymous with liberation.
Likewise, freedom is the engine that moves the protagonist and one of the faculties that he values the most:
Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven gave men; with it the treasures that the earth holds and the sea cannot be equaled; for freedom as well as for honor one can and must venture life, and, on the contrary, captivity is the greatest evil that can come to men (...)
Friendship
Another of the themes that predominate in the novel is friendship and it is clearly seen in the relationship between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The link between both characters is unconditional, since they are completely different characters.
At the beginning of the book it seems that nothing can unite them, however, although they are two completely different archetypes, they manage to merge.
Slang popular in The Quijote
Another peculiarity of this novel by Miguel de Cervantes is that each character has their own language. That is, a way of speaking or expressing oneself that serves to define and characterize the character. There are no two characters within this work that manifest themselves in the same way.
The language of the novel ranges from cultured expressions to vulgar or colloquial ones. It is precisely in this last idiomatic register one of the most enriching of the novel.
Especially through the character of Sancho Panza, Cervantes reveals some deep-rooted sayings in the popular culture of the time, specifically pronounced in the geographical area where the action. Today some of them are still used, although with some variations.
From said to fact there is a long way.
Impact of the book Don Quijote of La Mancha
More than 400 years after its publication, Don Quijote of La Mancha continues to catch all those who dare to wrap themselves between its pages. Cervantes's work can boast of being immortal. What are the reasons for its survival through the centuries?
On the one hand, it marked a before and after in chivalric novels which made it the first modern novel of literature.
On the other hand, he introduced as a novelty to the genre the protagonism of the characters in front of the action.
Likewise, it is an extremely critical work with the society of the time. However, what perhaps Cervantes did not predict is that it would be precisely the judicious nature of the situation at that time, a condition for his novel to be imperishable. Well, the criticism and thematic richness contained in the book are perfectly transferable to the present day.
Main characters
Don Quijote of La Mancha
His original name is Alonso Quijano but he calls himself Don Quixote. He is a hidalgo (noble title from his predecessors and not personally obtained).
He is a slim-built man in his mid-century and a great lover of chivalric books. Such is his fondness for them that they unleash his madness to the point of believing himself a knight.
Don Quixote is the most universal character in Spanish literature and symbolizes justice and the wandering spirit.
Sancho Panza
He is a farmer from La Mancha, a neighbor of Alonso Quijano, who is imagined as a squire by Don Quixote during his adventures as a knight-errant.
Unlike Don Quixote, Sacho Panza is a man of strong constitution and of smaller stature. It represents simplicity and naivety. He is a humble man of the people who symbolizes the sanity in front of the madness of the protagonist.
Dulcinea del Toboso
One of the requirements to be a true knight errant is to have a maid. Thus, Dulcinea del Toboso is actually a character invented by Don Quixote himself within his chivalric stories. It is actually inspired by Aldonza Lorenzo, a neighboring farmer from Don Quixote.
According to the protagonist, Dulcinea is the most beautiful maiden there is. However, in the novel she appears only mentioned by Don Quixote.
Rocinante
He is Don Quixote's horse and his faithful companion in adventures. The choice of his name was not an easy decision for the protagonist. This is how it is described in the novel why she is called Rocinante:
Four days went by in imagining what name he would give it... and so after many names that he formed, erased and removed, added, undid and did again in his memory and imagination, finally She came to call Rocinante, a name in her opinion high, sonorous and significant of what she had been when she nag, before what she was now, which was before and first of all world.
Gray
The donkey of Sancho Panza is thus known, although this is not its official name. Actually, in the novel he does not say his name but rather Sancho refers to his ass using the word “rucio”, synonymous with donkey.
Influence of The Quijote in art
The universality of the novel by Don Quixote they make it, almost from the moment of its publication, a literary work "alive" and present in other artistic disciplines. Thus, from its origin to the present day, the book has spread through other forms of expression.
Either through the reproduction of the work through visual arts or the inspiration that the book has given other artists to create something new with “quixotic” features. But without any doubt, Don Quixote it is an "eternal novel" that has ensured its immortality thanks to artistic disciplines such as painting, music, cinema, theater or literature. Some examples are:
In the paint
Numerous artists have tried to give an image of Don Quixote through this discipline. Salvador Dalí also dared to give his own version of the ingenious hidalgo.
In the music
The Quijote it has been represented, especially, in European opera. However, Cervantes's work has also inspired rock. An example is the song “Niño siempre niño (Don Quixote in his delirium)” by the urban rock band Tragicomi-K.
At the cinema
Since the origins of the seventh art it has been wanted to make an adaptation of the adventures of Don Quixote. Today, it remains a matter of debate which of these interpretations of the work taken to the cinema gives it the recognition it deserves.
The Quijote in everyday language
What does it mean that someone "is a Don Quixote"? What does "dulcinea" mean? These questions show that the book of Don Quixote Not only has it crossed territorial borders throughout the centuries, but it has also surpassed the limits of language. The novel has been able to transfer terms that were its own to everyday language.
Thus, when we refer to someone as "Quixote", in reality, we are pointing out that that person "has high ideals and fights and defends causes that, although noble and just, do not concern him."
However, when we look at the meaning of "dulcinea" we refer colloquially to the "beloved woman". It can also be considered "dulcinea" to something idealized or unattainable.
Biography of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) in 1547 and died in Madrid on April 22, 1616.
He was the son of a doctor named Rodrigo de Cervantes and Leonor de Cortinas. During his youth he studied in different cities of the Spanish geography (Madrid, Valladolid, Salamanca, among others), due to the migratory movement of his family in search of improving their situation economical.
In 1569 he moved to Rome, due to problems with justice, and in 1571 he participated in the well-known battle of Lepanto, where his left hand was affected.
In 1575, when he was returning to Spain, he was arrested along with his brother and transferred to Algiers. In 1580 he managed to return to Spain, after several escape attempts and thanks to the payment of a ransom from his family.
In December 1584 he married Catalina de Palacios de Salazar. A year later he published the novel The galatea. It wasn't until he was 57 that he published the book Don Quijote of La Mancha. Ten years later, in 1615, the second part called The ingenious knight Don Quixote de la Mancha.
