DON QUIXOTE LA MANCHA

By De Cervantes

VOCUBULARY WORDS

Albeit- even though

Scorned- harsh criticism that shows a lack of respect or approval for someone or something; despised

Inn- a house usually in the country where people can eat and rent a room to sleep in

Dub- to confer a knighthood on

SUMMARY

Alonso Quijano is a Hidalgo, a low ranking Spanish person of nobility. He is about 50 years old and he lives in a settlement near the La Mancha region in Spain towards the beginning of the 17th century.

He loves reading stories about knights and fantastic stories about chivalry, princesses, magicians, enchanted castles… In fact, he is so involved with these fantasies that he slowly starts to lose touch with reality and begins to believe that he is one of these fiction heroes.

SUMMARY

Alonso finds some old armor and prepares an old horse from the stable which he names

Rocinante. The knight decides he needs to have a maiden, so, in his imagination he

converts a young villager named Aldonza Lorenzo, who he was once in love with, into the lovely LadyDulcinea del Toboso. As for himself, he bestows the name Don Quixote

because it rhymes with the name of the famous knight “Lanzarote”, also known as

Lancelot.

SUMMARY

So, the new knight sets off on an adventure with a ridiculous new costume and the hope of committing heroic deeds. However, it will

not take long for misunderstandings to occur between the real world and the fantasy world

of Don Quixote. In one scene, Don Quixotearrives to an inn, which he believes

to be a castle, and demands that the innkeeper dub him the noble title of “knight”.

SUMMARY

Later, he comes upon a young shepard whose master has tied to a tree and frees.

Next, Don Quixote is insulted by some merchants who he promptly attacks. The

merchants give Don Quixote a brutal beating and leave him on the side of the road where

he is found by a peasant and delivered home.

SUMMARY

Don Quixote convinces his neighbor, Sancho Panza, to be his squire

by promising him riches, fame and the governorship of an island. Sancho, unlike Don Quixote, is a practical albeit ignorant

man. Little by little he is seduced by the wild dreams of his new master. Together, they

sneak away in the early dawn and their famous adventures begin.

SUMMARY

The duo quickly come upon large windmills which Don Quixote believes to be ferocious giants and thus attacks. The pair continues on to live many other exciting adventures when

Don Quixote attacks a flock of sheep believing it to be an army, when his horse Rocinantepursues some mares, when he has a

sword duel with a Biscayan, frees some inmates that then attack him, finds a barber basin which he believes to be a

magical helmet and many other comical situations that occur in an inn. Later, the outrageous knight decides to move to a

mountain top in order to show his penance and earn the love of his imaginary maiden. His two best friends, a priest and a

barber, are forced to trick him into a cage in order to bring him back to his settlement.

SUMMARY

Throughout their adventures, Sancho Panza and Don Quixote will encounter a wide range of diverse characters including

innkeepers, pirate prisoners, prostitutes, goatherds, soldiers, priests, escaped

convicts and scorned lovers.

SUMMARY

In the second part of the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha novel, published 10 years later, Don Quixote departs on another

adventure with Sancho. This part of the novel is more critically acclaimed by critics because the protagonist, treated with more respect by the author, is successful in some

of his endeavors and becomes a more reflexive and self conscious character.

SUMMARY

Sancho, on the other hand, becomes more of a dreamer. The second part of Don Quixote

of La Mancha is written under the assumption that all of the characters have already read the first part of the novel and

are thus familiar with both Don Quixote and Sancho. As a result, the

people they meet will try to take advantage of the pair.

SUMMARY

A Duke and Duchess encounter Don Quixote and Sancho and decide to invite them to their palace for

amusement and practical jokes. For example, they tell Don Quixote that Dulcineais under Merlin's

spell to put him through a series of tests. They also deceive Sancho into lashing himself, believing that it will release the maiden from the spell. The Duke

later gives Sancho a false governorship and Sancho proves to be a wise and practical ruler, however this

is also a deceptive prank that leads to humiliation.

SUMMARY

Don Quixote is forced to lay down his arms and abandon his acts of chivalry for a period of one year when he is conquered in a battle

with the Knight of the White Moon. The conditions were agreed upon before the

battle with the knight, who was really to one of Don Quixote's friends dressed in a

costume. Defeated, they start their journey home

SUMMARY

Don Quixote retires in the countryside and eventually falls sick. He recovers his full

sanity and, despite Sancho's encouragement to restore his faith in fantasy, takes back the

name of Alonso Quixano and the former adventurer called Don Quixote is no more. In

his place, Alonso Quixano apologizes for all the craziness and any harm that he may

have caused before passing away.

ANALYSISDe Cervantes and Don Quixote La Mancha

De Cervantes

In late 1580s, de Cervantes began working for Spanish Armada as a commissary. It was

a thankless task, collecting grain supplies from rural communities. Many did not want

to provide the goods, and de Cervantes ended up in prison on two occasions

because of charges of mismanagement. During this trying time, he began writing

some of literature's greatest masterpieces.

De Cervantes

De Cervantes published the first part of Don Quixote in 1605.

The became the world's first best-seller, eventually being translated into more than

60 different languages. De Cervantes published the second part of the story in

1615.

Conclusion

Since De Cervantes was imprisoned this time, He might have been wishing for a

better life, and therefore, Alonso, who was full of imaginations, sprang up, and likewise

De Cervantes, he was lost to his fantasies.

Conclusion

De Cervantes might been telling his own life with this story, given that De Cervantes was not very successful in the field of literature,

in fact, only two of his works survived.

De Cervantes, Don Quixote La Mancha

and the Renaissance Period

ANALYZATION

The Renaissance's intellectual basis was humanism, derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that ofProtagoras, who said, that "Man is the measure of all things." This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature.

ANALYZATION

The Renaissance's intellectual basis was humanism, derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of

Protagoras, who said, that "Man is the measure of all things." This new thinking

became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature.

ANALYZATION

The philosophy can be observed in the story of both De Cervantes and Alonso, De

Cervantes had shown an extreme extension of his imagination in the story by creating a

character who have extreme extension of imagination. And all the things have been

aligned with the philosophy.

FIGURE OF SPEECH

Hyperbole

The use of hyperbole was observed a lot in the story, first is that, how can a man

survived a journey like this with insanity. Second is that, even though Sancho was

quiet ignorant, the story did not state that he was insane, therefore, he should be

aware that all happenings was a product of Alonso’s mind.

METAPHOR

The story was merely composed of imaginations of the protagonist, Don

Quixote, which could have been used by De Cervantes to symbolize his current situation, his failures in the past or his wild dreams of

success for the future.

METAPHOR

For example, the wind mill that Don Quixote had mistaken for a giant, could stand for the cause of

his imprisonment the time he was writing the story, he was hired as the one who manages the food of Spanish armada, it seems like it’s a giant opportunity for him to be successful but instead

found himself(though Don Quixote didn’t get conscious at those moment) hitting the wrong

thing after all, that his effort led him to failure.

METAPHOR

The giant windmill could also stand for the first novel he wrote, La Galatea, in 1585, it

seems (at least for him) to be a good weapon to hit the giant that was he thinks

hindering him from success, but then, he was mistaken, he was hitting no giant at all

but a big windmill that is useless for his career.