Michele Mileusnich
Florida International University
In Don Quijote de la Mancha, a middle-aged man, Alonso Quijano, becomes severely mentally disordered when, at times, he is unable to separate reality from fantasy. Quijano begins to believe that he is Don Quijote, a knight sent to save La Mancha. Quijano´s intentions are sincere and well-meaning. He had hopes of doing good in a world of dangerous people looking to harm others. The townspeople where Alonso lives believe that he has lost his mind from reading too many novels on chivalry because his brain dried up due to “compulsive reading and sleepless nights” (Weimer 365). This makes Alonso Quijano the town’s laughingstock and an easy target of ridicule.
At the beginning of the novel, Cervantes wants to prove to the reader that books on chivalry are illogically written and that it would be obvious that Alonso Quijano would lose his mind reading these books day and night. It was not until the day that Alonso Quijano “woke up one day convinced that he was no longer a rural hidalgo but instead a knight errant named Don Quijote de la Mancha” (Weimer 364), that the madness began. The neurological symptoms that Alonso Quijano faced can be found throughout the novel by focusing on moments of insanity, madness, and sanity Alonso experienced as Don Quijote. Cervantes demonstrates his understanding of memory, insanity, and social norms of the time through his character Don Quijote.
Neurological disorders were illustrated as contemporary problems during the Spanish Golden Age. The period’s models of the mind were “symptomatic of the early reformulation of the individual subject as well as the reconceptualization of the pursuit of knowledge and truth” (Weimer 365). Researchers have shown that Alonso Quijano, when acting as Don Quijote, suffered from severe neurological disorders due to his disturbances of judgment and erratic behavior throughout the story. Cervantes’s clear descriptions of the symptoms that Quijano experienced show a decline in cognitive abilities, such as memory or dementia, rather than someone who is just eccentric. The character of Don Quijote is used “as a paradigm that provides context for the work and beckons the reader to explore the history, culture, and movement of the period as integral parts to the understanding of Quijote [as he] transitions from Medieval themes to Renaissance ideals, and finally to Baroque principles” (Scimeca 1). The novel is meant to serve as a critique of societal beliefs that highlight the cognitive issues seen through the character of Don Quijote.
I will investigate whether Cervantes deliberately made Alonso Quijano a “mad” character with neurological problems or if Cervantes wanted the readers to believe that Don Quijote was a “madman” making up a fantasy world full of adventures that never existed. It is important to see if this existential crisis that Alonso Quijano faced was a part of aging or if he was insane. The “psychological challenges that determine whether or not he [Don Quijote] believes his life has been meaningful and impactful or if his life has been ultimately meaningless and will not be remembered by humanity” (Rivera 5). These concepts must be examined to prove whether Quijano is indeed mad.
Rivera believes that schemas can influence the perception of memory and later action, depending on how much that memory influenced a person. In the case of Don Quijote, the character´s psychological experiences and the real world are based on the specific memory of the books on chivalry. This memory determines Don Quijote´s behavior and how he will react to certain situations. Although Quijano can clearly remember everything he has read about knights in his chivalry books and recite entire passages, in other areas of his life, he is having trouble remembering and separating what is real from the imaginary. This is why the character “Don Quijote” is precisely an illusion, and the “enchanter” who created him is Miguel de Cervantes, whose “supreme magic is that his illusionary hidalgo seems to depart from the order of reality as we generally know it by actually being not just more interesting than people in real life but more significant for a new understanding of the real world” (Creel 19). Don Quijote´s perception of what is reality and what is fantasy becomes blended, and he struggles to differentiate between the two.
I argue that this blending of reality and fantasy was used to show that Don Quijote did not want to accept that his memory was fading, so he had to invent imaginary adventures to seem more lucid and important to the people around him, which made him look even more insane. The stories on chivalry caused Quijote to “retain images [that] filled up his dried-out memory, which can retain no new impressions” (Weimer 365). Don Quijote believed that it was his life’s mission to make sure that chivalry never dies. Alonso Quijano eventually becomes obsessed with the adventures of knightly quests and romances and believes that he is a part of them. This results in Quijote not being able to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Clear examples include the idea of the beautiful Dulcinea as his love, a commoner, Rocinante, an aging horse whom he sees as the most powerful horse of the land, and a run-down inn he claims is an upscale castle.
Alonso Quijano suffered from severe neurological disturbances that progressively got worse throughout the novel when he turned himself into Don Quijote. I believe that this is a combination of insanity or madness that is both clinical and symbolic due to his erratic behavior. Don Quijote, as the “hidalgo himself, has the noble intention of dedicating his energies to the service of the moral order” (Palma & Palma, 247). He believed he had the task of defending the oppressed at all costs. Don Quijote used insanity to “probe the eternal debate between free will and fate” [to become a] man fighting against his limitations to become who he dreams to be (Puchau de Lecea 3). Don Quijote imagined himself as a strong knight as an aging man. Signs of dementia can be seen throughout the story when “Don Quijote´s memory fails him by fixating on the chivalric tales which he cannot stop remembering and through the lens of which he misconstrues reality” (Weimer 365). Don Quijote´s psychological disturbances need to be examined further to understand the madness that defines his character.
Weimer argues that Cervantes´s madness in Don Quijote is based on the period´s model of the mind and understanding of dementia. Literary critics claim that Alonso Quijano was suffering from mental illness when he transformed himself into the character of Don Quijote. His mental state deteriorated, and it could be deduced that he developed a form of psychosis. Throughout the novel, Alonso had many breaks in reality. This occurred when “Cervantes explores the dual character of human nature and the ethical and aesthetic implications of the relationship between human beings’ physiologically real and psychologically fantastic aspects” (Creel 21). Dementia in the story dramatizes the inadequacy of older mental models that have been established in science. Sudol states that “Miguel de Cervantes describes Alonso Quijano´s physical and psychological conditions as if he had some sort of clinical insight into today’s understanding of the manifestation of psychological symptomatology” (4).
Sudol claims that the time in which Don Quijote was written serves as one representation of dementia at the time. Therefore, “it should not surprise us at this cultural moment, given Don Quijote´s iconic durability and adaptability, that Alonso Quijano has today come to serve as one representation of dementia according to its current conceptualizations in medical discourses, mass media, and the popular imagination alike” (Weimer 359). Cervantes used the novel as an attempt to explain his interpretation of mental illnesses at times through the characters in the story as a way for it to be accepted by society, rather than criticized. I will examine Cervantes and his previous background and access to medical information at the time.
The character’s years of obsessive reading slowly set off his psychotic breaks. Don Quijote´s dementia and psychosis were the main cause of most of the story’s events because Don Quijote’s madness “lies in his inability to distinguish literary romances from history and in his resulting belief that his era´s possibilities for self-fashioning include the chivalric identity exalted in those texts” (Weimer 364). Don Quijote believed what he saw to be true, and nobody could tell him otherwise. He continued to believe that he was a knight even when he failed on his adventures repeatedly. When Don Quijote realized that his memory was deteriorating, he did not want to accept it as a form of aging.
Boruchoff discusses the period in which Cervantes wrote Don Quijote. During this era, anyone who did not conform to societal expectations or traditions was considered mad. The term madness was used in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to describe practices that defy convention (Boruchoff 3). Anything outside of the norm was anti-religious and thus rendered to be brought back to the church because it was defying tradition. Social acceptance was taken seriously, and anyone who deviated was considered anti-Christian because people had spiritual expectations that needed to be followed. In the story, “Cervantes indicates that Quijano has not reached a self-actualized state, nor has he any major life accomplishments” (Sudol 7). Quijano suffers from an existential crisis.
For Quijano, “the absence of original thought and action became the fuel of madness of Don Quijote who wants something more in his life…this yearning for a greater calling possibly parallels the end-of-life conflict present in the psyche of Cervantes himself…who is holding onto life with one last chance to do something legendary at the time of writing his book” (Sudol 7). He knows that time is running out, and he does not want to accept it. This makes him even more mad, wanting to imagine impactful adventures where he can save society, even if it is just one last time.
The condition and diagnosis of madness were defined as practices by anyone who defied convention. Heretics could be led from madness to health if they put away their evil ways and completed good works. The townspeople believed that Don Quijote was mad because he did not follow the norms in La Mancha. Everyone tried to “fix him” to become normal again so that “Don Quijote does not act in what others deem an irrational manner… [so he becomes the] futility of chivalric madness in an age of conformity” (Boruchoff 11-14). Don Quijote did not want to conform to the expectations of society and thus was considered a madman. Nevertheless, Quijote stuck to his values throughout the story to “reestablish the social norms of times past during the age of knighthood and chivalry in a period that no longer normalized those types of behaviors” (Rivera 7). In Part I, the character of Don Quijote was intentionally created to be mad to criticize how society would not accept anything other than the norm.
Perez, de Leech, and de Leon´s article argues that Don Quijote is a madman who is unable to separate reality from fantasy. Don Quijote’s madness gets worse as he fights against his limitations to become who he dreams of being. Quijote not only fought internal battles to be the best version of himself but also fought imaginary objects that nobody else could see. The climax of the story was when Don Quijote had a battle with a windmill, which he believed was a giant. From that point on, his symptoms got much worse as Don Quijote´s mental state continued to decline.
The townspeople and Quijano´s friends do not understand why Don Quijote is in search of adventure. To “save him,” they burned his books on chivalry, believing that they were responsible for his madness. Don Quijote filtered reality through ideology, and this created his perception of the world. Don Quijote’s inability to separate fantasy and reality became more severe as the story continued. It can be said that Don Quijote was mentally ill throughout the story, and it was not an overnight psychotic event, but something that happened over time from excessively reading books of chivalry. Years of reading set off this psychotic break because his brain dried up.
The dual nature of the personalities of Don Quijote and Alonso Quijano can be discussed as being “sanely insane”. It can be argued that although Don Quijote exhibited symptoms unmistakably indicative of madness, he maintained his sanity underneath this mad façade. He realized that something may be wrong, but rather than acting on it, he ignored the symptoms and refused help. Quijano was aware that life has a start and end date and that his time was running out. He had a fear of being forgotten and thus created this character of Don Quijote to live in eternity as a knight in shining armor. I will discuss the importance of perceptions, melancholy, and what it meant to have a meaningful life in the time of Cervantes.
The books that Quijano read inspired him to become a knight, and he immediately collected the materials needed to do so. Quijano found protective armor and created a visor and a cap to complete his uniform. He selected a skinny horse that he named Rosinante to be his main source of transportation. Quijano believed that all knights must have true love and claimed that Aldonza Lorenza would now be Dulcinea del Toboso, whom Don Quijote believes is the most beautiful woman to have existed. Aldonza is a stranger to Quijano, yet he is convinced that she is the love of his life. These images “could result from sense perceptions or could be generated in the deliberative imagination” (Weimer 364). Some may argue that Quijano behaves like an actor who memorizes lines from the chivalry books he reads, but in reality, he is a “madman” trying to do justice in the world to find the ultimate truth. Quijano is more than just an eccentric character because in his mind, he believes that he will do good even if his adventures fail.
Alonso Quijano declared that his new name would be Don Quijote de la Mancha. He convinced a short stocky man named Sancho Panza to be his partner throughout all his adventures because “in the Quijote, enchantment serves specifically to make it possible for characters to maintain their illusions, to evade responsibility, and to provide an explanation where rational explanations are lacking” (Creel 22). Sancho “functions within a well-developed sense of reality, knowing little of the world of chivalry” (Scimeca 2). Sancho, an illiterate, is the exact opposite of Quijano, who is well-read. The combination is the ideal pair because “Cervantes produces these characters to balance one another in the novel and evince competing values and themes” (Scimeca 2).
The second moment of insanity in the book was when Don Quijote found a run-down inn that he called a castle. He convinced everyone around him that what they were viewing was a luxurious castle and not an outdated resting spot. By Quijote turning the inn into a castle, “Cervantes is pointing out to us the fundamental, dissenting, nonobservant aspect of the process whereby the creative mind, willingly turning its back on the ordinary descriptive concepts with which we refer to objects, creates a metaphorical language that gives them new meaning and that posits new, more valuable ways of looking at the world” (Creel 27). This scene is important for several reasons. In Don Quijote´s warped reality, he believes that he has been knighted by a lord in this castle, when in real life it was a sham ceremony improvised by a tavern-keeper, who is trying to get rid of the madman.
Inside the castle, there is no food other than salt fish and moldy bread. Trying to make the best out of the situation, Don Quijote ate the food and said that it was the most excellent bread and that the trout was exceptional. At the inn, two prostitutes appear. Don Quijote, once again out of his mind, referred to them as great ladies who were maidens of high standing. The ladies laugh and play along with the “peculiar behavior of the protagonist Alonso Quijano” (Gulliksen 200). Once again, the townspeople played along with Quijote´s antics. The mechanism whereby Don Quijote “misconstrued the contents of the physical world is not triggered by faulty sense perception but rather is conditioned by the combative aspirations of it by imposing the banality of a literal empiricism conditioned purely by sense impressions, factuality, and practical interests” (Creel 28-29) to efforts to change the reality of the inn, food, and profession of the women.
When Quijote gets out of hand, the people see him as either a laughingstock or a madman because of all the irrational things that he says or does. He became a figure of ridicule because of his odd quirks. People who interacted with him believed that he was crazy, even Sanch, who questioned his behavior, continued to follow him on his adventures. The people who met Don Quijote immediately tried to change him, but he refused help.
During Don Quijote´s attempts to find adventure, he ran into a man with mules. Without reason, Don Quijote began attacking the man. Don Quijote claimed that the land was infested with enemies, and he began to defend himself against any unknown person who approached the area. Don Quijote believed that the land was full of injustices. Later, he saw a young boy tied up to a tree. Don Quijote demanded that the boy be set free, not realizing the implications of what could happen to the boy once he leaves the area. Don Quijote was “willing to look beyond the reality of what he is experiencing to create his interpretations of what he is perceiving” (Rivera 13). The man set the boy free, but as soon as Don Quijote left, the boy was beaten with a heavy strap. Mindless Don Quijote did not think of the repercussions of his actions, he only believed that he was doing good when he was really doing more harm than good.
Don Quijote constantly talked about the beautiful Dulcinea del Toboso, whom nobody had ever seen. While stumbling into a group of merchants, Don Quijote was questioned about this so-called Dulcinea woman. Don Quijote shouted that no man could go any further until they acknowledged that Dulcinea was indeed the most beautiful woman alive. Since Quijano did not have a wife, he was “experiencing a crisis of sorts with himself and that his disconnect with reality is a manifestation of this crisis that he is attempting to resolve” (Rivera 8) by creating the platonic love of Dulcinea. The merchants, confused, asked Don Quijote to see a portrait of her. Don Quijote did not have access to such a thing, so he continued to explain how beautiful Dulcinea was. The merchants believed that Don Quijote was indeed mad because there was no evidence to assess the beauty of Dulcinea.
Don Quijote continued to seek adventure where none existed. This was problematic because these adventures often resulted in self-inflicted injuries. Instead of getting frustrated, he relied on his strong beliefs and faith. Don Quijote was constantly defending his faith and his sense of truth, even if others believed that he was mad. In the story, “for Don Quijote, what is real is what is true, but truth is not empirical knowledge, nor is it merely based on a non-rational fideism, it is cognizance of the real value of a suprasensible ideal” (Creek 28).
This defense mechanism is seen throughout the book during each imagined adventure. Don Quijote used his memory of what he read in the chivalry books to give himself comfort. At one point, he began reciting verses from one of the stories that he memorized. People in the area rushed in to see what was happening because Don Quijote was speaking so loudly that it attracted everyone’s attention. The extravagance of Don Quijote and his monologue here shows just how extensively he read the chivalry books and how they “dried up his brain”. Since the books interested him, he knew everything by memory and did not have to carry the books around with him to remember the story. Quijano was adamant about becoming a knight, so he forced himself to remember every detail. His memory was never in decline when he referenced his chivalry books.
Throughout the story, Don Quijote´s friends, such as the barber and the priest, tried to burn the books that they found most dangerous for the knight. It can be considered that Don Quijote´s friends were just as mad as he was because they believed that the books were provoking the problem instead of realizing that the one with the problem was Don Quijote and his mind. When the barber and the priest got rid of the books, Don Quijote claimed that what he saw was the truth and that his mission to save the world and restore humanity was indeed real. Don Quijote wanted his deeds to be “immortalized in the annals of history” (Schmidt 76).
At times, there was confusion as to what was Don Quijote´s imagination and what was his reality. The knight believed that there was an evil enchanter who worked constantly against him. The evil enchanter was Quijote´s mind creating this imaginative world because “what Don Quijote sees is a figment of his imagination, we as readers are more interested in what he sees than in what is there” (Creel 19). Don Quijote believed that the sooner he could seek adventures, the sooner the evil enchanters would be banished from the land.
Quijote thought the enchanters would disappear if he could complete his quest. For Don Quijote, “the idea of enchantment is that its function is primarily practical: it is a means that Don Quijote uses both to render his world more fabulous, like the world of chivalric romance and to defend that fantasy world from the encroachments of empirical fact” (Creel 22). At this moment, Sancho became “quixotized” (Puchau de Lecea 4) and continued to follow his insane leader. Sancho cared for and respected Don Quijote as not only his master but also his friend, never going against his plans. This makes Sancho just as mad as Quijote himself because he believes that if he goes on adventures with Don Quijote, he will also become successful.
Don Quijote´s psychological disturbances were at an all-time high when he and Sancho found themselves on a plain full of windmills. In this scene, readers finally realize that “the character was mentally sick throughout most of the story. Don Quijote told Sancho that there were thirty to forty giants to encounter, when they were windmills. For Quijote “in his eyes, real objects became fantastic, and the best-known of his tragicomic adventures is the battle with ferocious giants that were in reality windmills (Gulliksen 200). Don Quijote began attacking the windmills with his sword. For Quijote, “the windmills [were] not just giants but are giants cleverly made to look like windmills” (Creel 20). He was able to see things for what they were, even if for a short time. At times, Don Quijote switched from erratic behavior to lucid intervals. However, after some time, he was once again convinced that the person who stole his books was the same enchanter who turned the giants into windmills.
Although Quijote lost the battle to the windmills, he was victorious because he always chose to dare and push boundaries. Spiritually, Quijote was triumphant because he always went with his gut feeling. He continued to seek his adventures even after failing. Quijote may have failed physically, but he followed what he believed to be true and moral. Sancho, going along with Don Quijote, showed that Don Quijote converted the world into his point of view through the force of madness. Krabbenhof claims that those who were sane at the beginning of the novel end up becoming madder than Don Quijote, which is the case with Sancho, the barber, and the priest. Moreover, Don Quijote was the author of his insanity, becoming both a perpetrator and a victim of his invention. Reading the books on chivalry was the blueprint for Quijote´s paranoia. Still affected by the attack of the “giants,” Don Quijote woke up with another delusion.
Since he was unable to differentiate between reality and what his brain and eyes were processing, at this point in the novel, “Don Quijote´s cognitive decline is characterized by disturbances of judgment, time confusion, false identification of persons, and agitated behavior” (Gulliksen 200). Outside, two monks on muleback were followed by a carriage. Don Quijote, frightened, told Sancho that the two monks were wizards who were stealing a distressed princess. Due to Don Quijote´s mood swings and impaired judgment, he began to attack one of the monks. The monk jumped off his mule, and the other monk took off running to safety. Quijote was seeing things that were not physically there, but in his mind were vivid and real.
Once again, Don Quijote went on a tangent with one of his talks about his books of chivalry because “the hidalgo, of course, sees no need to carry any of his precious books with him on his sallies for reference or inspirational, he knows them very well from memory” (Weimer 364). He spoke about the virtues of the Golden Age and how men lived closely with nature. “In this portrait of the hidalgos´ madness, Don Quijote´s problematizing of the models of the mind is symptomatic of the early modern reformulation of the individual subject as well as the reconceptualization of the pursuit of knowledge and truth,” (Weimer 365) a concept that people were going away from at the time. Don Quijote wants to stand up against ideas that must be defeated. Don Quijote continues believing that the world could be saved and that knights were necessary for society to survive.
The people in the area, who were mainly goat herders, had no idea what Don Quijote was talking about, yet they listened to what he had to say while staring with confusion. Sancho, who had become used to Quijote´s odd behavior, ignored the speech and continued eating until he fell asleep. It could be said that Don Quijote had a superior mind because he did not care what other people thought of him or his actions. The character Don Quijote represents a personification of a fierce understanding that seeks and finds complete freedom and power due to having read so many books on knights serving the community. Don Quijote believed that they were positive examples to emulate, even if people believed that he was crazy. Don Quijote´s speeches show that he “possesses great wisdom” (Krabbenhoft 6) in times of lucidity when he is not in a delusional episode. The reader can conclude that even though Don Quijote was free-thinking and well-informed, he still had moments of insanity.
To attain his knightly duty of protecting those in need, Quijote was committed to protecting a woman named Marcella. She was an important character in the story because she lived an independent life in the Golden Age, just as Alonso Quijano did not assimilate to societal norms and turned into Don Quijote to better the world. Quijote wanted to protect the woman´s independent way of life from anybody who believed she was living the wrong way. The men in the area did not believe that Marcella was living a real life since she worked independently, did not have a husband, and did not have children. Quijote stuck to defending the rights of the innocent by siding with Marcella´s worldview. Don Quijote defended Marcella because just as Marcella goes against the norm, Don Quijote follows the stories of chivalry as a way to lead his own life. Readers may believe that Quijote has once again become sane, but his behaviors are short-lived.
Shortly after, Don Quijote convinced himself that the daughter of a powerful lord and owner of a castle had fallen in love with him. While explaining this fabricated story to Sancho, a cloud of dust could be seen in the distance. Instead of focusing on exactly what is seen on the horizon, “Don Quijote´s memory failed him by fixating on the chivalric tales which he cannot stop remembering and through the lens of which he misconstrues reality” (Weimer 365). Quijote went into a frenzy and shouted that two armies were approaching to attack him and Sancho. Don Quijote “regards empirical reality with suspicion because he considered ideal conceptions to be a basis for skepticism are themselves enough to imply that ideas on the subject of enchantment” (Creel 21). The more nervous Don Quijote would get, the stronger the vision, and he would go into a more altered state.
Sancho was confused because all he could see were two dust clouds. Creel argues that even though what Don Quijote sees is a figment of his imagination, the readers are more interested in what he sees than in what is there. A veiled form of criticism that Cervantes wants to portray in the novel is when Don Quijote rebels against societal norms on the level of the very act of perception. The author believes that Don Quijote regarded empirical reality with suspicion because he considered ideal conceptions to be a basis for skepticism, which implies that his ideas are the subject of enchantment. Don Quijote´s complex character developed many symptoms relating to schizophrenia due to delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and strange behavior.
The next mental break that Don Quijote experienced happened in the middle of a funeral party when Quijote randomly attacked a man who shouted rudely at him. At this point, Quijote believes that ghosts are present, and many “Neuropsychiatric symptoms include complex visual and auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions” (Gulliksen 200). In fear, everyone from the funeral ran off into the night, and all that was left was a clergyman with a mule. The man begged for his life in fear and explained that he was not a dangerous man. These illusions, “if they appear otherwise, Don Quijote thinks, it is because they are enchanted … they have been transformed into deceitful sensory images” (Creel 20). Don Quijote, at this point, became lucid, realized what he had done, and apologized to the man. Quijote caught himself drifting away from reality and attacking people for no apparent reason, but “at times, Don Quijote defends his perceptions with a surprising earnestness and lucidity: he explains the existence of elements of the real world that are incompatible” (Creel 19). Don Quijote continued to struggle between what was real and what was fantasy.
While seeking a new adventure, Quijote told Sancho that he could see a knight wearing a golden helmet. Sancho confirmed that there was indeed a person wearing something on his head that looked like a barber’s basin. Quijote disagreed and said that the knight was wearing Mambrino’s helmet and that he would deal with him while Sancho stayed back. Quijote questioned that man who, out of fear, threw himself to the ground so as not to be stabbed. Don Quijote “rebels against such deceitful illusions, and he does so on the level of the very act of perception” (Creel 1). The man explained that the barber basin was placed on his head to protect himself from the rain, but Quijote, being irrational as usual, would not accept that explanation. The man escaped, Quijote kept the “helmet”, and he and Sancho rode off.
Don Quijote´s next adventure dealt with guards who were transporting twelve prisoners with chains to their new location as slaves. Quijote demanded that the guards set the men free because God had created all men free. While the guard argued with Quijote, the slaves escaped from the chains. Quijote requested that the prisoners present themselves in front of Dulcinea. The prisoners realized that the knight was mad because there was no Dulcinea in sight. They picked up stones and started throwing them at Quijote. Once again, Quijote thought he was helping to save and protect people, but ended up getting attacked and hurt by the same people he freed. Cervantes places Alonso Quijano in a reality where he suffers from his idealism and madness.
Throughout the story, Don Quijote “fulfills clinical criteria for the probable diagnosis of Lewy body disease…it is characterized by progressive cognitive decline, fluctuating cognition, recurrent visual hallucinations, and systematized delusions” (Gulliksen 200). Don Quijote and Sancho met a woman named Dorthea who offered to play the damsel in distress for the knight. Quijote became fascinated with Dorthea because she was familiar with and had knowledge of books on chivalry. She began calling herself Princess Micomicona. Don Quijote was convinced he would marry Dorthea and rule her kingdom to one day become an Earl. He then changed his mind because he believed he must be loyal to Dulcinea. Dorothea, who also seemed to be insane, threw herself at Quijote´s feet and said that she would be at his service. The knight said that he could not engage in any other adventure until he had rescued her kingdom.
Dorothea told Don Quijote that a giant named Pandafilando had taken over the kingdom and that she must flee to save herself. Don Quijote believed that he would slay the giant when he knew that Dorthea was fabricating the story, again showing a psychological problem and disconnect from reality. In this scene, Don Quijote realizes that the story was fabricated. Quijote showed that he has a selective understanding of reality and the real world. Sancho found Don Quijote in his room wearing pajamas and a cap, fighting an imaginary giant, the enemy of Princess Micomicona, while asleep.
This scene shows that “Don Quijote had rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorders where they found him with the sword in one hand, stabbing everything as if he were fighting, and it was of note that he had his eyes closed, for he was sleeping and dreaming that he was in a battle against giants” (Gulliksen 200). Due to the peculiar behavior of Alonso Quijano and the age of Quijano, he had Lewy Body Disease, a pathological variant of dementia and cognitive decline. In the case of Alonso Quijano, in his eyes, real objects became fantastic and part of his dangerous adventures when he was suffering from dementia.
Still convinced of being attacked, Don Quijote stood guard outside the castle to protect the women who were inside the castle from evil. Maritornes decided to play a trick on Don Quijote, acting as if she were in love with him. She asked him to give her his hand. Don Quijote did so, and immediately Maritornes slipped a knot over his wrist, tying him up, dangling him by his arm. What Cervantes does in this scene is that he wants Don Quijote to see the harshness of the real world and show him that not all people have the best intentions. Now that he is imprisoned, Don Quijote believes even more that he has been enchanted.
Don Quijote was later transferred by wagon to a new location. During the ride, he cried out that he would unite with the Tobosan dove and would produce cubs after the knight’s image. Don Quijote believed that knights should be carried in a sky chair on the back of a flying beast. He shouted that in a few days, he would be made a king to rescue the damsel from confinement and return her to her husband. The people in the area believed Don Quijote to be crazy and begged him to fight. Don Quijote was then hit, fell to the ground, and lost consciousness.
Every situation in which Don Quijote found himself in the story proves that he was suffering from psychological and neurological disturbances because he was never happy or content. There was never a time when Don Quijote did not “cross the line between reality and madness” (Krabbenhoft 6). At the beginning of the story, it seems as if Alonso Quijano is facing an existential crisis. Quijote is searching for a meaningful life because he did not want to accept a basic life; he wanted to be a person of virtue and high status. However, as soon as he turned into Don Quijote, everything changed. It was his opportunity to gain honor and glory, something that he did not have in his real life. This experience made Quijote feel as if he were living a productive life.
The more adventures that Don Quijote encountered, the crazier he became, and the more mental issues developed. In the end, it can be concluded that Quijote suffers from dementia, schizophrenia, delusions, lack of sleep, and hallucinations throughout the story. Don Quijote “suffered from chronic insomnia due to ruminations and worries” (Palma 249) about saving the world. It can be inferred that Cervantes may have been a possible influence on the psychoanalytical scientific works of Freud, and therefore, he purposely made Alonso Quijano a “madman” because Quijano had a severe inability to separate fantasy from reality. “Fictional literature is a valuable source of information about life in the times at which the narratives are set” (Pridmore & Pridmore 65), and the story of Don Quijote is no different, with Cervantes discussing the psychological problems of the time.
“In some paragraphs of Don Quijote, there is a clear Freudian symbolism” (Lopez Muñoz Et. al.). Quijano´s madness was not something that happened overnight but gradually got worse over time. Alonso Quijano did not see himself as a “madman,” but rather as a person searching for justice and truth. It has been documented that while in Seville, “Cervantes frequently visited the Hospital de Inocentes, a mental asylum that served as a holding place for the mentally disabled, criminally insane, epileptics, and the poor” (Palma 252) giving him access to patients with mental illness to witness their behavior, which was later represented by Quijote in the novel.
Literary circles believe that “Cervantes mentions the hospital and some of its patrons in Quijote to venture a social commentary on the state of mental health and or the treatment of psychiatric patients in Spanish society” (Scimeca 20). Cervantes was well-informed on trends in medicine and psychology. Researchers claim that “Cervantes might have witnessed a real patient with Lewy Bodies and translated him into the character of Don Quijote” (Palma 255). In addition to numerous diseases, lack of sleep played a major part in Quijano´s suffering. Cervantes “Points out that sleep deprivation contributed to the rise of Don Quijote’s madness and that with little sleep and much reading, he lost his wits” (Palma 249). In the scenes where Don Quijote had more sleep, he had more lucid moments.
In the end, Don Quijote´s madness is his tragedy. He believes that doing good and having good intentions are enough to change the world. He did not think that he would be deceived or hurt intentionally by others. Other characters in the story become mad themselves through association with Quijote. What is ironic is that “Don Quijote’s madness does not belong to him alone” (Krabbenhoft 7); it also affects his readers as his insanity is projected onto them. Quijote never found true happiness. It can be said that “Alonso Quijano´s behavioral patterns of temporary happiness plummeting into a depressive state allude to Cervantes´s commentary on the falling empire or Spain” (Sudol 9). Even though Don Quijote is a madman in the end, he is tireless in his quest to do good in the world.
Works Cited
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Scimeca, Michael D, “Left Brain vs. Right Brain: An Analysis of Cervantes’s Don Quixote” (2016). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 66. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/66
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