Don Quixote and reality

Appearance vs reality is a major theme in Jane Austen. In Northanger Abbey, Catherine imagines life to be like gothic novels (hmm, that sounds familiar); in Sense and Sensibility, both Elinor and Marianne misread things; in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth misunderstands Mr Darcy, she and everyone else misperceive George Wickham; in Mansfield Park, Fanny is the only one with clear sight, the Crawfords fool everyone—including some readers—with their utter charm and appearance of goodness; in Emma, the titular character, combining in her both pride and prejudice, misinterprets everything around her and almost messes up everyone’s lives; Persuasion is the only Jane Austen novel in which appearance vs reality is not a major theme, but even then the likeable William Elliot turns out to be wildly different from what he has appeared to be. 

It is also one of the major themes in Shakespeare, most obvious when he explores the theme of jealousy and slander, or the danger of words: Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Cymbeline, which lead up to The Winter’s Tale, a play in which jealousy explodes out of nowhere and destroys everything, without even a slanderer (or shall we say the slanderer is in Leontes’s mind?). But it’s not just those plays—appearance vs reality is a constant theme in Shakespeare as the plays constantly feature some form of disguise, some kind of acting or plotting or pretending. 

Cervantes too is interested in the theme of reality, but from a different angle: through the theme of fantasy vs reality, through the interplay of Romance and Realism, through the contrast between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Cervantes toys with us and makes us wonder what’s real, what’s not real, and more importantly, what it means to be real. It is tricky from the start when he creates multiple narrators, but he pushes it further in Part 2, and creates more layers. How reliable are the narrators? Is Don Quixote mad, or does he pretend to be mad? Does he reinvent himself to escape his own mundane life, or is he rebelling against reason and reality? Is Dulcinea del Toboso actually a peasant woman named Aldonza Lorenzo as Don Quixote says in Part 1, or is she completely imagined? Why does he say he has seen her a few times, and later say he has never met her and has no idea what she looks like? 

(From Britannica: illustration from a 19th century edition)

It’s fascinating to look at the way Cervantes explores the theme of fantasy vs reality and its possibilities. Don Quixote lives in his fantasy and looks at everything in the light of the chivalry romances he has read. When confronted with reality, he makes up another lie. As he gets knocked down, beaten up, pranked on…, he creates more and more elaborate fantastical explanations till he’s finally defeated by reality and no longer able to deny it. 

The more interesting thing is that Don Quixote is not alone—Cervantes also creates Sancho, and Don Quixote’s fantasy affects him. The squire has never doubted that his master would give him an ínsula. The effect is sometimes even stronger: in Part 1, for example, there’s a moment when Sancho thinks Don Quixote has just killed a giant when he attacked and destroyed some wineskins. 

Cervantes also creates multiple levels of fantasy. For example, when Sancho is charged with finding Dulcinea in Part 2, rather than expose the lie that he never delivered the letter to her and/or confront the reality that she doesn’t exist, he points at some peasant girl and makes up a lie about enchantment. The imagined Dulcinea is now made flesh by a fantasy. Don Quixote later sees the peasant girl, or “the enchanted Dulcinea”, in his vision in the Cave of Montesinos, which Sancho knows is not real, but he cannot expose the fantasy about the Cave and the enchanted Dulcinea because then he would also be admitting his own lie. 

It becomes even more complicated when the Duke and Duchess play a prank on them about the disenchantment of Dulcinea. 

“Wonder once again fell on everyone, especially Sancho and Don Quixote. Upon Sancho because he saw that, in spite of the truth, they would have it that Dulcinea was enchanted; upon Don Quixote because he couldn’t be sure if what had happened to him in the Cave of Montesinos was true or not.” (P.2, ch.34) 

(translated by Tom Lathrop) 

This leads to another series of lies and deception—you get the point. 

But then we get to the final moment, and when Sancho tries to give encouragement, to save Don Quixote with some more fantasy but Don Quixote—now Alonso Quixano—is no longer capable of pretending that his fantasies are real, it is heartbreaking.  

______________________________________

On another level, Cervantes explores the question of the realness of fictional characters. 

Throughout the story, Don Quixote argues with other characters that Amadis and other knights errant in the chivalry romances are real. He himself is not real—Cervantes’s book is a novel—but even within the fictional world of the book, he is not real—he is an invention of a hidalgo named Alonso Quixano. But at the same time, he is real, because of the fake Don Quixote by Avellaneda, released after Part 1 but before Cervantes’s Part 2. Cervantes hates the book with such a burning passion that he alludes to it several times in his own book and includes a scene basically declaring the other Don Quixote and Sancho to be impostors. That adds another layer. 

In addition, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are fictional, and yet over the past 400 years, we have loved and discussed them as though they’re real. There’s a Don Quixote Museum in Spain. There’s even a museum for Dulcinea, who doesn’t exist in the novel.

______________________________________

I’m enjoying Fighting Windmills by Manuel Durán and Fay R. Rogg. They write well about the context of Don Quixote and Cervantes’s techniques. 

Now I’m reading about its influence on later novels.