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How to read literature like a professor analysis
How to read literature like a professor chapter 2 analysis
How to read literature like a professor chapter 2 analysis
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In Cervantes’ Don Quixote, the protagonist, a middle-aged gentleman named Alonso Quixano, loves chivalry and spends all his free time collecting and reading books on it. Obsessed with the heroic ideals portrayed in the books, he decides to roam the countryside as a knight-errant named Don Quixote, protecting the helpless, defending women, and destroying evil. Reality and imagination begin to blend together for him, as he sees a peasant woman as a great lady, an inn as a castle, or some windmills as giants. His perception of the world is aligned with neither reality nor the perceptions of those around him. As a result, he obviously acts and treats people differently. But do Don Quixote’s illusions affect his interactions with others for better or worse? One thing is certain: in any given situation he tends to exaggerate either the virtues or vices of people, to the extent that he perceives them as much better or much worse than they really are. Because of this, it seems his illusions cause his interactions with other people to be either better than usual, or much, much worse. He builds people up more …show more content…
It is also possible that Don Quixote is not offering a break from reality so much as he is merely substituting one illusion for another. Perhaps the prostitutes were used to being treated as worthless scum, and that may be as much of an illusion as the idea of high-born ladies. The friars were probably almost always treated with respect, as a result of the position the Catholic church held in society at the time. Other people’s reverence for them as holy friars may be just as groundless as Don Quixote’s fear of them as evil magicians. So although Don Quixote is definitely deluded, perhaps everyone else around him is
When it comes to analyzing the “banana massacre” scene in chapter 15, I found three narrative techniques the author used to describe this scene. Therefore, one can notice that this part of the book is the climax. As a result, one infers what the author is trying to say about Latin American history and politics.
In “Once Upon a Quinceanera” Julia Alvarez follows the Hispanic coming of age tradition for females to explore how evolution of culture has shifted throughout generations. By doing this Alvarez discovers perceptions are influenced by cross cultural boundaries. In “Leave Your Name at the Border” Manuel Munoz, discusses the barriers between Mexicans and Americans when it comes to language and how it affects future generations. He does this by acknowledging socially expected norms for Mexican Americans in public and the tensions created when assimilating to such norms between a non-dominant and dominant group. In “What’s Black, Then White, and Said All Over,” Leslie Savan discusses how black talk and pop talk is connected because white people
Optimism is a necessary quality for the average person. It allows one to strive for the best and persevere. But, can there be such thing as too much optimism? Can it blind individuals from the harsh truths of the world? The answer to both of these questions is yes; as is exemplified by the novel Don Quixote as well as numerous instances in history, Optimism overshadows the more realistic negative consequences of achieving a dream. Protagonist Alonso Quesada, self-dubbed knight-errant Don Quixote, embarks on a rather ill conceived journey in search of a quest. Upon seeing the windmills as giants, Quixote opportunistically takes advantage of the situation and attacks the harmless contraptions resulting in his inevitable defeat. However, the moment that shows the reader the optimistic
Truman Capote put-to-words a captivating tale of two monsters who committed four murders in cold blood. However, despite their atrocities, Capote still managed to sway his readers into a mood of compassion. Although, his tone may have transformed several times throughout the book, his overall purpose never altered.
The book and movie of Don Quijote de La Mancha has many differences and similarities. There are a lot of differences in the book and movie. First, in the movie Sancho is in the beginning of the movie with the scene of him about to shave. In the book, Don Quijote meets Sancho later on and starts the journey with him. Second, Don Quijote fights two other knights in the movie. He wins the first fight and then loses the second fight. In the book, there was no fight with any knight. Third, in the movie Don Quijote has more than one adventure. In the book he only has one adventure and it ends when Don Quijote is sleeping in bed at his home. There are many similarities in the book and movie as well. First, Don Quijote fights the bags of wine in both
On February 7, 1812, a popular author named Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England during the Victorian Era and the French Revolution. He had a father named John Dickens and a mother named Elizabeth Dickens; they had a total of eight children. In Charles’s childhood, he lived a nomadic lifestyle due to his father 's debt and multiple changes of jobs. Despite these obstacles, Charles continued to have big dreams of becoming rich and famous in the future. His father continued to be in and out of prison, which forced him, and his siblings to live in lodging houses with other unwanted children. During this period of depression, Charles went to numerous schools and worked for a boot cleaning company. This caused him
Lots of people have received gift that is not particularly favored. Those people know exactly how Ana and Dori feel. Ana is a character in Erin Fanning’s “The Quinceanera Text”. Dori is a character in Rachel Vail’s story “Good Enough”. Both of these characters received disappointing gifts, but later the girls realized how much these present represent the love the families show towards the young ladies. “Good Enough and “The Quinceanera Text” have similarities and differences such as author's tone and types of characters.
In Man of La Mancha, the popular play based around the Spanish Inquisition, a man named Cervantes puts on a play while in prison based around Quinoa. Quinoa creates an alter ego, Don Quixote de la Mancha who is an idealist, and chooses to always look at the positive aspects of life. Don Quixote is extremely optimistic, and makes it his goal to bring joy to others no matter how foolish it makes him. Quixote’s idealistic attitude towards life makes him not fear rejection. He accepts it, and he is intent on convincing people that he really is a knight, despite the fact that knights are no longer around in this era, and the age of knights ended over three hundred years ago. Aldonza rejects Quixote time and time again, and repeatedly calls him insane and a madman for thinking that she is special, but Quixote believes that she is Dulcinea and she has inner beauty. Aldonza said to Quixote, “Once-just once- would you look at me as I really am?”(50). To this Quixote replies, “I see beauty. Purity. I see the woman each man holds secret within him. Dulcinea”(50). When the two of them have this conversation Aldonza is saying that she is not one to be loved, Aldonza has not yet learned to love herself or anybody. Quixote sees the goodness in her, and sees her for what she could become. Aldonza continuously tells Quixote that she is not Dulcinea and she is not beautiful, but Quixote does not accept that, despite the fact that Aldonza rejects him over and over again. Another reason Quixote is an idealist is because he is very enthusiastic about everything, and is extraordinarily cheerful. When Sancho and Quixote sally forth on their expedition Quixote sees a castle complete with battlements, but Sancho sees it for what it really is, which is an ...
Men and women were held under drastically different expectations in Spain and the Spanish colonies in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. These set gender roles are effectively demonstrated through the life of Catalina de Erauso, who experienced the entire spectrum through her adventures as a transvestite in this time period. Opportunities and freedom in culture, politics and economy, and religion varied greatly between men and women. Men were capable of living out their lives independently and ambitiously. Women, on the other hand, were taught to be reliant and mild-mannered characters in the background. De Erauso shatters this idea of a woman’s role by fulfilling a life of adventure and power. In doing so, she briefly dispels the obligations of gender roles, if only for herself. Catalina de Erauso was a nun, a lieutenant, and a history-maker.
The prostitutes Quixote meets inside transform into ladies. Cervantes describes the girls as shocked to be referred to as anything other than prostitutes. He writes, “The girls looked at him, endeavoring to scan his face, which was half hidden by his ill-made visor. Never having heard women of their profession called damsels before, they were unable to restrain th...
Don Quixote is one of the oldest forms of the modern novel. Written in the early 17th century it follows the adventures of Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza. In Don Quixote, Cervantes satirizes the idea of a hero. Don Quixote sees himself as a noble knight among the ignorant common folk, but everyone else sees him as a bumbling idiot who has gone mad. Therefore, the novel’s longevity in the western canon is due to the humorous power struggle and the quest of a hero Don Quixote faces throughout the story.
In Miguel de Unamuno’s novella San Manuel Bueno, Martyr, readers learn about the life of Don Manuel, a Catholic priest secretly holding atheist beliefs and doubts in the afterlife. Despite these disbeliefs, Don Manuel works tirelessly to help his community and is regarded as a saint by all who meet him, hence the handle “San Manuel,” which literally translates to “Saint Manuel.” Don Manuel’s struggle and affiliation with sainthood receives further analysis and context from Francisco LaRubia-Prado, who parallels Unamuno’s novella to elements of Greek Tragedy and heroism. Drawing from Unamuno’s background with Ancient Greek playwriting and Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo, LaRubia-Prado argues that Don Manuel should be seen as a representation of Christ and must suffer in silence in order to play the role of the dying, tragic hero that saves the
...there is also the factor of the trustworthiness of a character. There are doubts in my mind that both Prospero and Don Quixote’s growth as individuals were faux used only to disguise themselves. In Prospero’s case it is used to present a different image of him, one that will not be taken advantage of just as his brother did to him. This new image is the one we see in the beginning of the play which I described earlier as foul and manipulative. In the case of Don Quixote it seems he was never insane and he only pretended to be out of his mind to avoid conflict. He presented himself as a mad man only to fulfill his dream of traveling as a knight-errant. Which if these are the cases then both characters never developed in the play and the novel then we are all manipulated as if the positions were reversed and the characters we were reading were after all the authors.
Miguel de Cervantes' greatest literary work, Don Quixote, maintains an enduring, if somewhat stereotypical image in the popular culture: the tale of the obsessed knight and his clownish squire who embark on a faith-driven, adventure-seeking quest. However, although this simple premise has survived since the novel's inception, and spawned such universally known concepts or images as quixotic idealism and charging headlong at a group of "giants" which are actually windmills, Cervantes' motivation for writing Don Quixote remains an untold story. Looking at late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Spain from the viewpoint of a Renaissance man, Cervantes came to dislike many aspects of the age in which he lived, and decided to satirize what he saw as its failings; however, throughout the writing of what would become his most famous work, Cervantes was torn by a philosophical conflict which pervaded the Renaissance and its intellectuals--the clash of faith and reason.
Throughout history, many people have witnessed events that they cannot explain. People want to believe the supernatural and the unknown but perhaps they have never encountered something odd or strange themselves. The old man with wings, the main character in "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was a misunderstood individual throughout his time on earth. The author uses details of the old man's persona and describes several strange events that occur to demonstrate the difference between natural and supernatural.