Don Quixote

Huzaifah Khan                                                                                                                                             Essay#1
Don Quixote is a work centrally concerned with misreading and rewriting. There are different types of misreading Don exhibits of chivalric romances, reality, misperception, etc. Don Quixote considers himself to be a knight and attempts to live like one. However the world around him in which he lives is but a simple ordinary place. There are many ways in which Don can be seen as enacting a kind of re-writing with actions of his past and of the reality around him.
Don Quixote exhibits evidence of misreading chivalric romances and reality. Don’s perspective of being a knight is to do everything like a knight. Don himself is a fat ugly man who thrives to become a knight. In doing so he reads many chivalric romance novels and tries to mock them. This interferes with Don’s life and the people around him. It creates confusion for the readers as Don misinterprets much of the events in his life. One example is when Don spotted windmills and mistakenly claimed that they were knights instead. Don states “Look there, friend Sancho, and behold thirty or forty outrageous giants, with whom I intend to battle” (Cervantes, 55).   In response Sancho says “I would worship take notice, that those you see yonder are no giants but windmills” (Cervantes, 55). Don has convinced himself he is in battle with giants who are in fact windmills. Don brings his fantasy of chivalric novels and pretends to be a knight who battles his enemies. Clearly Don is misreading the situation he is in. As a result it creates a suspension of disbelief for the readers. There are two different perspectives we see in this case, Sancho and Don. Much of what Don is saying is just an imagination of the real world they are in. Another example of misreading is when Don encounters some slaves in prison. One of the slaves proclaims the reason why the other...