Life is just as funny as the ironic novel about Don Quixote. No, the truth - how else to explain the mass of misunderstandings that occurred with this work? The eternal image of Don Quixote excites the minds even now, in the 21st century. What is the secret, why does a person who has done so much pernicious nonsense become a model of humanism? Let's try to figure it out.
What a sad story
Written purely as a satire and a parody, the work becomes the most important novel of its century; all read it as a profound philosophical parable. The hero, whom Cervantes conceived as an absurd, but still negative character, becomes a model of a dreamer, revolutionary, altruist; it contains all the dreamers and easy-going people, including the author himself, who filled Don Quixote with all the features that he found at home. The companion of the protagonist, his best friend, Sancho, a dirty peasant dreaming of wealth, turns into a symbol of the people and his infinite wisdom.
So, an elderly nobleman Alonso Kehano lives in his estate. He spends all his free time reading chivalric novels, although the institute of chivalry disappeared a hundred years ago. At some point, he realizes that he is ready to give his life for all those ideals that he encountered in books. He decides to become a knight.
Kehano finds himself a horse (just as old a wreck as he himself) - Rocinante, acquires a sane but dreaming of money squire named Sancho Panza. The knight finds the lady of the heart and, calling himself the resounding Don Quixote, sets off to accomplish his exploits.
But these feats are absurd and full of madness: a battle with giant windmills, an attack on ghost monks, “saving” a girl from her own servants - “evil robbers”.
Despite the title invented by Sancho, “Don Quixote, Knight of the Sad Image,” travelers become only objects for ridicule. The main intrigues are built by the student Samson Carrasco. In the second third of the novel, he was defeated by our hero during a duel that the villain himself created as an evil production. This hurt the pride of the young man so much that now he wants to take revenge.
A student encourages the nobility to play a performance in front of Don Quixote - they have fun and justice to him. After going through a thousand humiliations, invisible to himself, at the court the Knight of the Sad Image (by that time already the Knight of the Lions) fights with the Knight of the Moon - and loses. The armor of the winner is on Samson. He requires Don Quixote to renounce his wanderings and travels.
As a result, the old man dies quietly in bed. He knows that he did stupid things - but he is sure that he is still a good person, that the image of Don Quixote is a bright spot in the dark world. By that time, not only he thought so, but also crying servants, led by the faithful squire Sancho.
Relationship change
The image of Don Quixote in the novel by Cervantes was originally humorous. The writer himself spoke of creating a counterbalance to the “high”, pseudo-pathos literature that flooded the bookshelves of his contemporaries.
Therefore, he tried to make his novel as low and mundane as possible, the so-called “rogue”. And initially it was perceived. The characterization of the image of Don Quixote was unambiguous - all of Spain laughed at the novel.
However, over time, after the death of Cervantes, a new interpretation of the image was born in the head of people. And the German romantics are to blame for this, who found in the wandering knight a symbol of their whole philosophy. For them, Don Quixote became a dreaming dreaming soul in the world of dirty realism.
It is this thought, filling up, developed in the world and further. And now Turgenev puts Don Quixote on a par with Hamlet, praising his desire to fight in the name of an idea.
Already in the 20th century, the discussion about the Knight of the Sad Image continues. Not only philosophers and writers, but also psychologists who find in Quixote many interesting things, want to speak about the problem of his relationship with the world.
And still every year Don Quixote before our eyes loses comic and enthusiasm, turning more and more into a tragic and incomprehensible figure.
Impact on world literature
Don Quixote is an eternal image in literature, and this is the main achievement of Cervantes. Without wanting it, he gave the world that ridiculous eccentric that was so needed. It is Cervantes that we owe the “savages” in the books of the Enlightenment, when separation from society or another view was no longer considered negative. Incidentally, it was the image of Don Quixote that served as the inspiration for Dostoevsky when working on The Idiot.
But no less important is the merit of Cervantes as a writer who brought the novel into the literary world in the format in which we now know it. Thanks to him, the book became a work with a long history, many lines and strong changes in the lives of the characters.
Eternal wanderer
First, it is worth considering the most superficial symbolic option - the image of Don Quixote as the idea of an eternal traveler. This is a man whose life must be connected with the road. There is simply no other way out. And most interestingly, this person grows out of the "bookworm."
And he does not lie to himself and is not deceived. For him, hardships and problems on the way are true happiness. And Don Quixote himself notices this, focusing on this attention. He is even happy with adversity, because they were the same in chivalric novels.
Inner romantic
What do romantics see when reading the Don Quixote masterpiece? The analysis of the work begins with a discussion about how strongly the protagonist coincides with their inner world. Indeed, for them, the image of a knight itself is an integral part of philosophy. And here the “hero of the sword and shield” is also rejected, not understood, expelled from society.
What a romantic does not erect this image on his flag! After all, each of them is convinced that the world of dreams is truly real, and their own imagination, mixed with feelings, must be put above anything. The struggle of Don Quixote is a spit in the face of reality - cruel, dirty and rude; this is a battle with windmills in the name of common good. This is a previously lost war, but you need to be inspired by the fact that the Knight of the Sad Image was happy!
Man of power
However, the eternal image of Don Quixote lies not only in romance and wanderings, not only in these two gentle features of man. After all, the question can be approached from the other side, if you see strength in the hero of Cervantes.
Yes, yes, it is in this weak and old dreamer. Endless courage lives in the middle of it, and this is perhaps the main thing that Don Quixote learned from chivalric novels. Remember, he at least once ached, moaned, exclaimed? Of the stories of the nobility of wandering warriors, Don Quixote took the most important.
And let his ideals be false, and let him be insane, but the image of Don Quixote will forever be shrouded in courage and strength, unwavering will to fight for their ideals. He is also a revolutionary, who knows how to fight to the end in the name of his lifestyle.
Freedom Above All
An important theme in the novel was found by the Europeans of the Enlightenment. For them, the problems of the work began to play with new colors.
The fact is that philosophers and writers of that time did not put anything above freedom. For them, this was the main value, the main criterion for assessing happiness. Moreover, as is evident from the name of the time period itself, they were obliged to control freedom within the framework of obtaining new knowledge.
It goes without saying that through this prism they looked at Don Quixote. The eternally wandering knight, seeking truth and not constrained by any framework, was literally a find for them. He was immediately declared dying for the right to express a person of freedom, which is opposed by a stupid and incomprehensible society.
Despite the fact that it was during the Enlightenment that the image of the hero (Don Quixote) was shrouded in an aura of tragedy and detachment, yet he was still perceived as a comedic character. And if you understand the relationship between the knight and squire Sancho, you can find an even deeper and more interesting theory.
Clash of soul and mind
However, the image of the hero would not be complete without his faithful friend, which, as you know, should be in every great literary character. Here the squire Sancho Panza gives a fresh look at the wandering madman.
Together they create a dualistic symbol of the soul and mind. Rationalism Sancho, it would seem, must cruelly hit the sensual Don Quixote. However, in reality they create a strong union of loyal friends. Why, then, does Cervantes express both characters in such a way when in life we encounter fierce hostility of the soul and mind?
And the main secret is that both sides are independent. No, not from each other, not at all - they are distant from the opinions of the people around. Don Quixote and Sancho live in their own world, where together they are in harmony.
This is precisely what the Enlightenment thinkers found interest in. For them, the idea of the mutual coexistence of mind and soul was the solution to many of the philosophical problems posed. And in ordinary life, they cannot be in harmony precisely because of the shackles of external factors.
The antagonism of Samson Carrasco
If you want to know what a person is, you do not have to look at his friends. More enemies will tell you. And here the image of Carrasco fully describes Don Quixote. The angry, vengeful and mocking student looks in contrast with the Knight of the Sad Image even lower than it actually is.
His desire to harm the main character, his disgusting character emphasize for us the nobility of Don Quixote. Indeed, in the end, Samson himself flirts in the proposed circumstances and becomes a sort of dark reflection of the protagonist. Indeed, it is in the image of the Knight of the Moon that he defeats Don Quixote, thereby ... recognizing his victory. The fact that you can defeat a madman only by his own rules.
Look at a religious figure
Of course, such an ambiguous character could not help but gain a religious interpretation. The image of Don Quixote in Cervantes’s novel didn’t certainly presuppose such a reading, but over time they began to see him as a martyr and saint. It would seem, for what? However, such statements are really not far from the truth, because the prototype of a wandering knight could very well be holy fools (saints who did not obey church dogmas).
However, the Spaniards, where Cervantes’s novel comes from, go even further - they compare the main character, Don Quixote, with the main character of the New Testament. In the Knight of the Sad Image, they see the reflection of the mercy and self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Whether this is true is a very controversial issue, but parallels can certainly be found.
Conclusion
The most important thing in Don Quixote is how deep the image of the protagonist is. All versions of its reading are correct and incorporated in the text initially. Everyone will see in him what he wants to see.
A separate article could be written for each of these versions. And what can I say - they have already written a lot. However, in any case, the image of Don Quixote is a manifestation of the best intentions and aspirations of man. Each of them, albeit briefly, is described above.
We can only further analyze and think about the lifestyle of the last European knight. Was he just insane or ...?