Assess The Strengths And Limit Essay Research — страница 2

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Of course the whole story is just a ploy to get Don Quixote on the road to his home village ( ajjh. The use of the name Micomicona itself is a parody of the ridiculous names used in books of chivalry. Another example is when Don Quixote is led to believe by the Duchess that she is Countess Trifaldi, cursed by an evil giant who has caused her to grow a beard. Again our knight gallantly promises to do battle with the giant, but it is all just a practical joke played on Don Quixote by the Duke and Duchess for their own amusement ( aqfjv The parody of these books continues with Don Quixote s love interest in the story. It was usual for a knight in books of chivalry to fall in love with a woman of similar status. Dulcinea del Toboso is not really an appropriate choice for a caballero

. She is in fact a peasant girl named Aldonza Lorenzo who Sancho Panza describes as a moza de chapa , or manly,(nvmn and not really the kind of lady expected to conquer a knight s heart. To add ridicule to Don Quixote s attempts to emulate great knight-errants by having a love interest is the underlying irony that he has never even spoken to Dulcinea and she is completely unaware of his courtship. This is an example of Cervantes using comic irony. All the fearless antics Don Quixote does in the name of his love for Dulcinea, such as the harsh penance he is prepared to endure in the Sierra Morena ( ajdf ) , are without true foundation as she is unaware of his existence. Another feature of the hilarity of Don Quixote as a parody of books of chivalry is the fact that he does not

fight to restore queens to their thrones or help kings repel invaders or for any such noble reasons. Cervantes mocks chivalresque adventure by making Don Quixote remain in Spain which was a peaceful nation by the end of the 16th century. For this reason his hero deliberately seeks out opportunities for combat and forces innocent people to fight. Don Quixote re-creates the real world as it should be seen in books of chivalry as he is loco , insane. Ordinary phenomena excite his imagination and he sees them as something out of a book. The most famous example of this, mainly due to the dramatic vision it conveys, is when Don Quixote seeing windmills in the distance imagines them to be evil giants and attacks them at full speed ( PI,cap 8 ). This kind of action is really pure

slapstick humour, which is a reason for the wide appeal of Cervantes book. The pointless battles in which Don Quixote gets involved invariably result in either he or Sancho receiving a good drubbing. This type of physical humour is common of the entremes farces. If Don Quixote s ridiculous adventures are not the result of crazed hallucinations, ironically he then justifies his antics when he sees things as they really are by deluding himself into thinking that an enchanter is making the situation seem normal. This is exactly what he does after he has been dragged along the ground by the mechanical arm of the windmill. Don Quixote refuses to concede he was hallucinating and claims that the evil enchanter Freston has changed the giants into windmills in order to embarrass him (

PI,cap 8 ). Cervantes constructs this most comical and ironic vicious circle as the reason behind Don Quixote s hilarious exploits. In Part II of the book Cervantes produces humour through the actions of Don Quixote and Sancho on account of the adventures the Duke and Duchess create to amuse themselves. The trickery involved at the palace is again characteristic of entremes type humour. Sancho is the bobo , fool, who together with his crazy master succeeds is misinterpreting the situations created by the Duke and Duchess and their servants. These made up adventures are parodies in themselves, which further accentuates their humour. For example, one of the giants Don Quixote is meant to fight is cross-eyed (jhhg which just makes the whole situation even more ludicrous and shatters

the whole ethos of the chivalresque nature of the situation. Cervantes develops his protagonist s character as not exactly typical of a knight who took to the road in search of adventures to put ideals of courage and honour into practice. Far from being fearless, Don Quixote is frightened by the noise of water-powered machinery ( PI,cap 20 ). Again reversal is employed to parody the chivalresque hero . Our knight is hardly modest and wants his fame to last forever. Noble knights usually stayed in castles, whereas Don Quixote sleeps in inns and then doesn t pay his bill (jknc , leaving poor Sancho to face the innkeeper s wrath which is not in the least honourable of his master. When a young lady of the Duke s court, Altisidora, falls in love with him Don Quixote is determined to