Dulcinea Del Toboso

As all great heroes in novels, Don Quixote faced a challenge to his esteemed place in knight errantry. The Knight of the White Moon proclaimed that his lady was far more extravagant than the Don’s lady Dulcinea. The White Moon told Don that if he would not confess this statement as the truth, they would be forced to engage in combat. The rules of the contest were if the White Moon won, then Don must return to a normal civilian and forever abandon the knight errantry. If the Don won, then the White Moon would give up his practice and all of his spoils and fame would be transferred to the Don. Unfortunately for Don, the White Moon’s horse was much faster allowing him to plunge into the Don, knocking him off Rocinante. The White Moon stood over Don and said, “You are vanquished, sir knight, and you are a dead man unless you confess what we agreed in our challenge” (928). Even in what Don considered to be his last moments alive, Don refused to defame the name and beauty of his lady Dulcinea del Toboso. The Don told the White Moon to slay him, to take his life, because he could never betray her. The Don professed, “Dulcinea del Toboso is the most beautiful woman in the world, and I am the most unfortunate knight in it, and it would not be right for my

As other characters in the book discovered, the White Moon was not a knight. He was a fellow neighbor of Don who was embarrassed of how the Don’s adventures and histories had disgraced La Mancha. Therefore, the knight, named Sanson Carrascho, took the road as a faux knight in order to defeat the Don and restore the good name to La Mancha. Sanson knew that the Don so firmly believed in the ordinances of knight errantry that he would adhere to the terms of their bet and forsake the life for the term of a year. Additionally, Sanson hoped that in that year he would regain his sanity and leave the life