Cassie Smith
November 19, 2008
World Lit 1
Paper #2
Don Quixote
I have chosen to show an interesting and comical relationship between the famous gentleman Don Quixote and the farm laborer Sancho Panza. The story, written by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra is set in the 1550’s of Spain. This unlikely pair goes on adventures and all the while learns important life lessons. I am prepared to show how comical, cynical, and dependent, Don Quixote of La Mancha and Sancho Panza are to each other.
In the story, Cervantes lets you know that Don Quixote is about the age of fifty and going insane. Quixote’s sidekick or, squire, is the farm laborer by the name of Sancho Panza. He is frightened quite easily and likes to speak his mind.
Since Quixote believes that he too can be a knight errant that wins the love of an imaginative Lady Dulcinea. He often spouts off long remarks like “O Princess Dulcinea, mistress of this captive heart! Thou hast done me grievous harm in bidding me farewell and reproving me with the harsh affliction of commanding that I not appear before thy sublime beauty. May it please thee, Senora, to recall this thy subject heart, which suffers countless trials for the sake of thy love.” (Grossman) Throughout the novel he tells people that he is a knight errant who is going to fight other knights and giants to win the love of his Dulcinea.
In chapter eight of part one he thinks that a windmill is a giant and he charges full speed to slay the giant. “So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, imploring her to support him in such a peril, with lance in rest and covered by his buckler, he charged at Rocinante’s fullest gallop and fell upon the first mill that stood in front of him; but as he drove his lance-point into the sail the wind whirled it round with such force that it shivered the lance to pieces, sweeping with it horse and rider, who went rolling over on the plain in a sorry condition.” (Ormsby). Of course...