The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, by Miguel Cervantes

906 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: critical analysis of don quixote

Through the use of tone, authors can appear objective, while in reality they use their attitude to influence their readers. The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha is a novel written in episodic form, by Miguel Cervantes in 1615. By ridiculing Don Quixote, the protagonist, this novel parodies medieval romances and satirizes the hero knight. Joe Darion’s songs, “The Impossible Dream” and “Man of La Mancha”, are from the 1965 musical Man of La Mancha. In this musical, a more serious tone is applied, since Don Quixote is regarded with respect. Throughout the literary works, Cervantes’ contemptuous tone characterizes Don Quixote as nonsensical, while Darion’s reverent tone portrays Don Quixote as a valiant knight errant.
In The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, Cervantes mocks Don Quixote by condemning his actions and by sarcastically praising Don Quixote. This influences the audience to believe that Don Quixote is a simpleton. Due to Don Quixote’s grave fascination with medieval books, he becomes engrossed in these stories to the point where it is abnormal. This interest leads Don Quixote to make irrational decisions, which earns him the censure of Cervantes. “His foolish curiosity reached / such extremes that he / sold acres of arable land / to buy these books of / chivalry” (Cervantes 826). Cervantes uses a condemning tone while he depreciates Don Quixote’s actions. Cervantes expresses a belittling tone by using strong diction with words such as, “foolish” and “extreme”. Through these words, Cervantes communicates that Don Quixote’s actions are irrational and outlandish. By chastising Don Quixote’s handling of money, Cervantes is able to convince the audience that Don Quixote is an imprudent character. The constan...

... middle of paper ...

...to view Don Quixote in a similar manner. Cervantes uses an informal facetious tone, while mocking Don Quixote, to persuade the reader to believe that Don Quixote is a fatuous character. Contradictory to Cervantes’ tone, Darion uses a rather reverent tone to praise Don Quixote’s noble deeds. Despite the different tones, it is clear that the reader is being influenced to view Don Quixote a certain way. Although tone can be very subtle, it has the power to transform a character, and also, a story.

Works Cited

Darion, Joe. "Dream the Impossible Dream." Rec. 2012. The Man of La Mancha.
Broadway Cast. 2012. CD.
Darion, Joe. "Man of La Mancha (I, Don Quixote)." Rec. 2012. The Man of La Mancha.
Broadway Cast. 2012. CD. de Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel. Don Quixote. Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with
Literature Level V. St. Paul, Minn: EMC, 2009. 825-32. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Magic Realism in Marquez´s Un Señor Muy Viejo con Alas Enormes

    1096 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1949, Dana Gioia reflected on the significance of Gabriel García Márquez’s narrative style when he accurately quoted, “[it] describes the matter-of-fact combination of the fantastic and everyday in Latin American literature” (Gioia). Today, García Márquez’s work is synonymous with magical realism. In “Un Señor Muy Viejo con Alas Enormes,” the tale begins with be dramatically bleak fairytale introduction:

    Read More

  • Censorship In Don Quixote

    1664 Words  | 4 Pages

    of conversion will function as a tropological hinge between the unsettled (the ontological underdeterminacy of La Mancha) and the unsettling (its hauntology). Sheeps shall become bandits and giants will turn into windmills (or was it the other way around?) for the sake of offering a metaphorical displacement of the shortcomings of the State’s ontological plan. It is in this sense that as Henry Kamen observes, in Don Quixote I-II Cervantes presents us with “una perspectiva de una sociedad en que las cosas no parecen ser lo que son” (2005). Consequently, in this part of the essay my analysis of Cervantes’s magical rhetoric I will not be focusing on the State-enforced divine performatives (at the end the day, they have shown to be infelicitous).

    Read More

  • Don Quixote Close Reading Analysis

    666 Words  | 2 Pages

    The second part of the novel begins by Don Quixote expressing his frustrations with the author who published a fake sequel to the second part of his narrative. Don Quixote claims he does not want to malign the dishonest author, Avellaneda. However, Quixote is contradicting himself because he goes on ranting about how this counterfeit author should “hide his name and conceal his birthplace, as if he had committed some terrible act of treason against the crown” (Cervantes 456). Don Quixote then tells an anecdote about a madman who represents the deceptive author, effectively conveying his frustration with the plagiarist. However, one wonders why Cervantes included the tale of Avellaneda in his novel. Was it to belittle the deceitful author, to address his literary critics, or to create a metafictional world, that blurs the lines between fiction and fantasy?

    Read More

  • The American Dream in And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, and America is in the Heart

    870 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ss and critical of religion due to the depressing state of his life--a typical characteristic of the people in his community. The protagonist of the novel portrays the anguished America of the Mexican-American migrant farmers.

    Read More

  • The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes

    2609 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Old Gringo is a fiction novel written by one of Latin America's most renowned and eloquent authors, Carlos Fuentes. Filled with war, adventure, love and more, this novel takes you back to the Mexican revolution fought in 1912. This contemporary fiction is based on many themes found and experienced by the main characters in this novel. The relationship between Mexico and the United States, the drive to find one's true self and the different ways two men need a woman are only a few themes contained in this story. The question: Is he Ambrose Bierce or just an old gringo, is one that I had to answer while reading this book. We all have different opinions, but it is a question that all ask themselves while reading The Old Gringo.

    Read More

  • Shakespeare’s play The Tempest and Michael Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote

    1234 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • A Very Old Man With Wings, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story “A Very Old Man With Wings”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about the

    Read More

  • Mexican Folk Music: El Corrido

    1821 Words  | 4 Pages

    During the late 19th century and early 20th century, a form of Mexican folk music called the corrido gained popularity along the Mexico-Texan border (Saldívar). Growing from the Spanish romance tradition, the corrido is a border ballad “that arose chronicling the history of border conflicts and its effects on Mexican-Mexican culture” (Saldívar). A sort of “oral folk history,” the corrido was studied intensely by Américo Paredes, who then constructed his masterpiece, George Washington Gomez, around the “context and theme” of the corrido (Mendoza 146). But the novel is not a traditional corrido, in which the legendary hero defends his people and dies for his honor. Instead, through its plot, characterization, and rhetorical devices, George Washington Gomez is an anti-corrido.

    Read More

  • The Duality of Truth in Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes

    3671 Words  | 8 Pages

    Wirfs-Brock, Jordan. “The Duality of Don Quixote’s Character as Shown through his Attitude towards Dulcinea of El Toboso.” Revision 5/05/04 21L.002 Web. 29 Nov. 2015.

    Read More

  • Insanity In Don Quixote By Miguel De Cervantes

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    Don Quixote is a parody of comedic relief and historical reference written by Miguel de Cervantes. The storyline follows the misadventures of a manic Don Quixote in his distorted view of reality. Cervantes uses the trajectory of Don Quixote’s madness to reveal that there is lunacy in everyone.

    Read More

  • Transformation of Reality as Portrayed in Don Quixote

    1204 Words  | 3 Pages

    Conclusively, throughout Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes explores the transformation of reality. By doing this, he critiques and reflects conventional societal literary norms. In three distinct scenes, Don Quixote or his partner, Sancho, transform reality. Often they are met with other’s discontent. It is through the innkeeper scene, the windmill scene, the Benedictine friar scene, and Quixote’s deathbed scene that Cervantes contemplates revolutionary philosophies and literary techniques. The theme of reality transformation does not even stop there. Sometimes the transformations of reality scenes act as a mimetic devices. Ultimately, Miguel Cervantes use of transformative scenes acts as a creative backdrop for deeper observations and critiques on seventeenth-century Spanish society.

    Read More

  • The Fantasies of Don Quixote

    1276 Words  | 3 Pages

    Spanish life, thought, and feeling at the end of chivalry. Don Quixote has been called

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Diles Que No Me Maten By Juan Rulfo

    1646 Words  | 4 Pages

    The themes explored in the novel illustrate a life of a peasant in Mexico during the post-revolution, important themes in the story are: lack of a father’s role model, death and revenge. Additionally, the author Juan Rulfo became an orphan after he lost

    Read More

  • Don Quixote Analysis

    1318 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Cervantes' Motivation for Writing Don Quixote

    1869 Words  | 4 Pages

    When Cervantes began writing Don Quixote, the most direct target of his satirical intentions was the chivalric romance. He makes this aim clear in his own preface to the novel, stating that "..[his] sole aim in writing..is to invalidate the authority, and ridicule the absurdity of those books of chivalry, which have, as it were, fascinated the eyes and judgment of the world, and in particular of the vulgar.” Immediately after the beginning of the novel, he demonstrates some of the ridiculous and unbelievable writing of these books: as Alonso Quixano--the man who decides to become the knight Don Quixote, after going mad from reading too many of these romances--sits in his study, tirelessly poring over his belo...

    Read More

More about The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, by Miguel Cervantes

Open Document