Molly Hester
Seminar 122
March 17, 2012
Living Life in the Past
When children are growing up, there are movies, and books about life, but not a realistic
life that can be helpful for when we grow up. Girls see movies and read books about prince
charming and happy ever afters; boys see movies and read books on fighting and becoming a
hero. Even though they are different for a boy and a girl, they are the same because they offer
unrealistic lifestyles to their audience. This kind of lifestyle can be seen as a chivalric. This way
of life shows the ideal lifestyle of knights and warriors but is not something one can obtain, and
unfortunately as we grow up we learn that all too soon, because as children, we want to be like
the people we have seen in movies and read in books. Don Quixote reads this kinds of books,
that offered an unrealistic life, and he thought it could be true. After reading all sorts of books
about knighthood and becoming a hero and being remembered, he decided to go on a series of
adventures in hopes of gaining the life he has always wanted, becoming a knight, falling in love,
and being remembered. It is upsetting for people once they learn that this lifestyle is unrealistic,
and in Don Quixote’s case, through his many trials and errors trying to become a knight without
learning this important life lesson, shows how books of chivalry are considered unrealistic and
can lead people down false paths.
In Don Quixote, the main character Don Quixote spent his whole life reading books on
chivalry. One day he decides we wants to become a night. He wants to be like the people he has
read about in his books. He wants to be remembered. He wants to do something great in his life.
If Don Quixote did not read books on chivalry, he wouldn’t have gone on this journey to find a
new life. Through all his adventures in trying to reach an unattainable goal, Cervantes does a
great job in depicting how false leading books of chivalry can be. “‘In short, keep your eye on
the goal of demolishing the ill-founded apparatus of these chivalric books, despised by many and
praised by so many more, and if you accomplish this, you will have accomplished no small
thing’”(8). Through many examples about Don Quixote and his life adventures, Cervantes
shows what chivalric books can do to a person. Cervantes doesn’t just talk about what is good
and what is bad, but through Don Quixote’s life and his journey, he gives us examples on the
ways it can effect ones life.
Many people know that knights are a thing of the past, and it took a lot of work to
become one. One cannot just read books on chivalry and set out to become a knight. A person
like Don Quixote, who spent most of his life reading books about chivalry and knighthood,
would not have known that it takes more work and one can’t just set out and expect to become a
knight. In one of his first adventures, his actions prove that it was because of the books, that
made him have this crazy idea in his head. Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho, come across
some windmills. It is very clear that these are windmills, but Don Quixote believes them to be
something else. Sancho even told Don Quixote that they are windmills, but he wouldn’t listen to
anyone else, except his crazy imagination.
Matters of war, more than any others, are subject to continual change; moreover, I think, and
therefore it is true, that the same Freston the Wise who stole my room and my books has turned
these giants into windmills in order to deprive me of the glory of defeating them: such is the
enmity he feels for me; but in the end, his evil arts will not prevail against the power of my
virtuous sword(59).
It is one thing to pretend when children are going up about magical ways of life, but it is another
when it is a grown man. In books people read growing up, things can change back and forth no
problem, it is part of using the imagination, but for Don Quixote’s sake, the books that he has
been reading, made him believes that these kinds of things can actually happen in real life. The
chivalric books that Don Quixote had been reading, lead him to believe that this kinds of things
could happen. Giants can’t turn into windmills and windmills can’t turn back into giants. He
read this books as if it were an instruction manuel on how to become a knight, and didn’t realize
this wasn’t how someone should live their lives. If Don Quixote read more books about life in
the country, or life in the city, he would have not gone on this adventure, because those books
would have had true life experiences and not a life of a knight.
While Don Quixote is on his adventure, he has to stay at many inns, until he has reached
his final destination. In the books he read about knights, they don’t stay at small inns, they stay
at palaces. So every time Don and Sancho would stop for the evening, he would envision a
beautiful palace.
In short, Sancho settled Don Quixote on the back of the donkey and tied Rocinante behind, in
single file, and leading the jackass by the halter, he walked more or less in the direction of where
he thought the king’s highway might be. And luck, going from good to better, guided his steps,
and in less than a league led him to the highway, where he discovered an inn that, to his sorrow
and Don Quixote’s joy, had to be a castle(109).
Don Quixote, according to the books of chivalry, is doing what knights do. He is fighting crime,
trying to find love, and getting wined and dinned at these fabulous “castles”, where the women
treat him like royalty. This is one of the ways, that Cervantes uses to show what books of
chivalry can do to people. Don Quixote thinks he is doing what needs to be done to be a knight,
where people who didn’t read these books would just think he is crazy with his entire adventure.
Books of chivalry don’t seem to contain any truth, and in Don Quixote’s case, can lead
people to go on a massive journey and not achieve anything in the end. If Don Quixote spent
most of his life reading other sorts of books, he may not have gone on his adventure. It was the
books that he read, about chivalry and knighthood that had him go on it in the first place.
Reading books that have possibilities of being true offer a better example of what life should
look like and examples of things that true people do. The cannon in the book, offers an ideal that
should help explain why books of chivalry are bad and should not be read.
Fictional tales must engage the minds of those who read them, and by restraining exaggeration and
moderating impossibility, then enthrall the spirit and thereby astonish, captivate, delight, and
entertain, allowing wonder and joy to move together at the same pace; none of these things can be
accomplished by fleeing verisimilitude and mimesis, which together constitute perfection in
writing(412).
In a way, books of chivalry are nice. They can be very captivating and interesting to read. I do
agree that at times they can be more entertaining than other more realistic books, because you
don’t get to see or read these kinds of things on a daily basis. It can be a nice escape from
reality. At times, it is nice to wander “what if”. This kinds of books can answer some of our
questions, then most of us, unlike Don Quixote, can continue to live out or normal lives. Even
though these books are entertaining to read, they don’t offer the truth within them, people like
Don Quixote, who spend their entire life reading these kinds of books may not know the
difference between realistic and unrealistic. If they don’t know the difference, they are going to
want to try to see if they can be like the people they read in the books. That is exactly what Don
Quixote did, and that is why chivalric books are condemned by many characters in the book.
Adventures are part of lives. Life is one full adventure, which helps one develop more
and more through all the learning, growing and life lessons that are learned throughout life. Life
adventures are way different than the adventures than Don Quixote went on. Don Quixote only
went on his adventures because of the books he read. Life offers realistic goal that one should be
able to obtain in their life, certain book that people read can help them get there, but the books
Don Quixote read, are not the kinds of books that can help someone get ahead in life. Cervantes
does a great job in showing how books of chivalry can be detrimental to ones life, and can have
the readers stuck trying to obtain this goal and unable to see the light. “...;instead you should
strive, in plain speech, with words that are straightforward, honest, and well-placed, to make
your sentences and phrases sonorous and entertaining, and have them portray, as much as you
can and as fair as it is possible, your intention, making your ideas clear without complicating and
obscuring them”(8).
Throughout this entire book, Cervantes gives great examples of what chivalric book can
do to their readers. The chivalric books that Don Quixote read led him to this adventure with a
very abstract and crazy goal. The books may be interesting, and may offer a life of what if, but
they don’t offer anything useful to the reader. Chivalric books not only offer unrealistic goals,
but they offer an unrealistic lifestyle to their readers. Instead of writing books about realistic life
adventures, they write about abstract, that at times, may sounds way more fun than realistic
goals. If the life they read about sounds more fun than the life they are living now, they may go
off and try to find that lifestyle, just like what Don Quixote did. Cervantes believes that more
books should be written about realistic goals and lifestyles. Anyone can make an interesting, yet
truthful story, they just need to find the words and know how to put them together.