Don Quixote Long and Hard

¶ … Don Quixote

Long and Hard is the Path to Wisdom

When attempting to distinguish a reliable relationship between aging and wisdom or aging and madness in a text as renowned as Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote, the prudent scholar has a number of factors to take into consideration. Most salient of these is the nature of the age of the protagonist, Don Quixote, as well as the specific nature of his madness. The author wastes little time in informing readers that at the novel's outset Quixote is "close on to fifty" (Cervantes 57) years old, which implies that he is not a young man and is well along in his process of aging. It is highly significant then that at this phase of his life, an affliction of madness takes possession of Quixote, and influences him to do a number of misdeeds that appear to be contrary to that of both reason and sanity. However, a closer examination of the cause of Quixote's madness and its dissolution at the conclusion of the novel indicates that aging, and the experience that is inherently a part of it, is intrinsically linked to wisdom which, in the case of Don Quixote, only increases with time.

An examination of the nature of the madness that possesses Don Quixote reveals the certitude of the aforementioned thesis. Although Don Quixote was close to 50 when he convinced himself that he was a knight and that the world of chivalry (consisting of princesses and dragons and such) was true and still very much alive, his age actually had little to do with this conviction -- which the author commonly refers to as madness. In fact, Quixote's insanity has considerably less to do with his age, and more to do with his hobbies, which the following quotation makes abundantly clear.

…our gentleman became so immersed in his reading that he spent whole nights from sundown to sunup and his days from dawn to dusk in poring over his books, until, finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind…as a result he had come to believe that all these fictitious happenings were true (Cervantes 59).

No one can dispute the fact that a man who believes fictitious events to be non-fiction is sane. Yet the source of this madness is not Don Quixote's age but rather his treasured books of chivalry, from which all of his romantic notions of knight-errantry and righteousness descend. Reading these books cause the protagonist to go "out of his mind," nothing else. Therefore, this quotation demonstrates the fact that there is no link between Quixote's unique cosmology and perception of the world around him, which is all his madness actually is, and his age. To that end, once can certainly not claim that Don Quixote possess a reliable connection between aging and madness, while further analysis of this novel indicates that aging actually leads to wisdom.

In fact, it is largely due to Don Quixote's natural progression of his life, which constitutes aging, that the central character of Cervantes' novel is actually able to overcome his madness via a tempered sense of wisdom. Moreover, the experience which Quixote has gained as a knight-errant plays a principle role in this wisdom which surmounts his madness. During the tenure in which Quixote was traversing the countryside with Sancho Panza looking for exploits and adventures, he was not reading books of chivalry. and, despite the fact that many of those adventures did not necessarily end the way Quixote would have liked them to -- particularly his final defeat at the hands of the Knight of the White Moon -- they provided him with a degree of experience that led to the wisdom that allowed him to eventually view the world the way it actually is, and not through a lens of chivalry, as the following quotation underscores.

My mind now is clear, unencumbered by those misty shadows of ignorance that were cast over it by my bitter and continual reading of those hateful books of chivalry. I see through all the nonsense and fraud contained in them, and my only regret is that my disillusionment has come so late, leaving me no time to make any sort of amends…(Cervantes 695-696).

This quotation is of immense importance, largely due to the fact that Quixote indicates that he has successfully overcome his mad view of the world as one of knights and chivalry. However, in order to gain this wisdom that allows him to see the "nonsense and fraud" of his former view of the world, he had to live -- and age -- through a number of experiences that eventually taught him the folly of his ways, not the least of which is his aforementioned defeat after which he vows to "retire to his village for a year" (Cervantes 680). When one considers that living and experiencing things that profit a person is an intrinsic process of aging, the idea that there is a firm connection between aging and wisdom in Don Quixote becomes even more solidified.

In many ways, one of the most egregious transgressions that Don Quixote is guilty of during his extended period of madness that he eventually overcame can be evinced through his relationship with Sancho Panza, his faithful squire. The characterization of Panza is quite interesting in terms of his motives of following Don Quixote, which initially begin for pecuniary purposes and eventually grow to encompass not just monetary reasons, but a sincere affection for his master as well. Regardless of what Panza's impetus for being led about the countryside battling fictitious foes and enduring mishaps with Don Quixote were, his acquiescence to Don Quixote's leadership, folly, and madness has a deleterious effect upon both characters. The wisdom required to acknowledge this fact, and to attempt to correct it by rewarding Panza in his will, indicates that only after aging and gaining the necessary experience that these misdeeds provided is Quixote able to reap the benefits of this insight, which is alluded to in the following quotation that occurs shortly after Panza is mentioned in Don Quixote's will. "At this point he turned to Sancho. "Forgive me, my friend," he said, "for having caused you to appear as mad as I by leading you to fall into the same error, that of believing that there are still knights-errant in the world" (Cervantes 698). Panza may correctly be adjudged credulous for believing Don Quixote's extravagant promises, such as the rewarding of the squire with an island for his faithful service. However, despite whatever regards the reader has for Panza's intellect, the preceding quotation demonstrates the indisputable fact that by leading Panza on his adventures, Don Quixote helps to project his warped cosmology upon his friend. The ultimate folly in this occurrence, which probably exceeds that of the numerous other deeds the two participated in, is that Don Quixote made Panza "appear as mad" as he was. Yet, it is only after gaining the wisdom that was learned throughout the numerous experiences that the two share that Quixote is able to arrive at this conclusion, and learn the proper insight to put this relationship in its rightful perspective. Doing so attests to the fact that he has overcome his madness, and that the luxury of experience has afforded him wisdom with which he is now able to make incisive judgments based upon.

Such experience, of course, was acquired on a gradual basis throughout the course of Quixote and Panza's travels and, despite the fact that its effects demonstrated most dramatically at the conclusion of the novel, it may be seen as a progression throughout the varying stages of the story. The very nature of aging is itself subtle; subsequently, the conquering of madness and the attainment of wisdom that enables Don Quixote to do so is measured in instances and in events. One of the best examples of such events that provide the protagonist with a particularly profound experience is his lodging at an inn overnight, which he naturally mistakes for a castle. The following quotation, in which the innkeeper asks the knight for remuneration, readily demonstrates the fact that Don Quixote's cognizance of reality, which eventually surmounts his madness, is a decidedly long time in coming -- much like the concept of aging itself.

"Then this is an inn, is it? said Don Quixote.

"And a very respectable one," replied the innkeeper.

"In that case I have been laboring under a mistake all this time," said the knight; for the truth is, I thought it was a castle, and not a bad one at that (Cervantes 179).

This passage is one of the earliest instances in which Don Quixote actually admits that his perception of his surroundings is wrong. The fact that he states he had been behaving in accordance to a false presumption ("a mistake") is indicate of a very valuable experience he has undertaken -- that there are in fact inns, which are more modern than the castles and other chivalric accompaniments of which his imagination has conceived. Yet this realization comes to Don Quixote as part of his journey, which is how age and experience also presents itself to any individual -- in a gradual, subtle manner that is learned with the passing of time. Therefore, it is accurate to state that Don Quixote's wisdom is a result of the experience he gains in his travels, both of which are linear components of time. The knowledge that he has acquired -- that there are indeed inns -- aids him later on in the novel when he passes a night at another inn. What the knight has learned from experience helps him to eventually overcome his madness, and occurs with the natural marching of time that can best be measured as aging.

In much the same way that the inexorable passing of time cannot be reversed, the wisdom that Don Quixote eventually accumulates due to his experiences throughout the duration of Cervantes' novel is irreversible as well. Therefore, once the knight has gained enough experience and wisdom so that he is able to overcome the previous condition of madness that had enthralled him, he would never return to it. This fact is demonstrated quite dramatically at the conclusion of Don Quixote, in which the former knight is administering his will. It is highly significant that he has given his worldly possession to his niece, only on the condition that if "she should see fit to marry, it shall be to a man who does not know what books of chivalry are" (Cervantes 699), and that if she does not adhere to this mandate she will be swiftly relieved of what Don Quixote has left her. This clause in Don Quixote's will illustrates the wisdom he has learned with age and the experience of the error of his former ways. However, the following quotation shows the reader that even when prompted by his best of friends to return to his previous ways of madness, the indelible wisdom acquired through experience will not allow Don Quixote to do so. This quotation occurs right after Don Quixote has dismissed the suggestion that he return to his previous ways of a knight-errant.

Amazed at his words, they gazed at one another in some perplexity, yet they could not but believe him. One of the signs that led them to think he was dying was this quick return from madness to sanity and all the additional things he had to say, so well reasoned and well put and so becoming in a Christian that none of them could any longer doubt that he was in full possession of his faculties (Cervantes 697).