It has been over four hundred years since Miguel de Cervantes first introduced the world to the ambitious, delusional, and chivalrous Don Quixote de la Mancha, and his trusty squire, Sancho Panza. Since then, the world we live in has been made more complicated by forces such as industrialization, globalization, and technological advancements. Yet, much remains the same about humanity: we form loyalties, make friends and enemies, challenge expectations, and many of us long to escape from the lives and identities we’ve been pushed into. If anything, the challenges of living in such a complex world, facing seemingly unstoppable disasters like the climate crisis or the global pandemic, create an even greater demand for imagination and reinvention. Now more than ever, we are in dire need of stories that can distract us, delight us, and deepen our understanding of ourselves and our society. The tales contained within Don Quixote can do all this and more for the modern reader. In this article, I will argue that it is still essential to read Don Quixote in 2022 in order to experience the entertainment and enlightenment of good storytelling. The novel provides escapism, universal truths, and social commentary that resonate to this day.
Perhaps the most obvious value of Don Quixote is its ability to entertain, allowing the reader to escape from their worries. As Alonso Quijano transforms himself into a knight errant, the reader is swept along through various landscapes and adventures, all of which are captivating in their own right. The book begins with his decision to leave behind his life as a gentleman in favour of travelling the world as a knight, modeling himself after the books of chivalry he has admired to the point of obsession. While this behaviour is not healthy when taken literally, if interpreted figuratively it can offer a way out of anything from the day-to-day mundanity of office work to the large-scale tragedies that cause increasing rates of anxiety, depression, and burnout in the twenty-first century. Escaping through the page, as it were, offers immediate relief from stress, and it also cultivates a long-term appreciation for the imagination.
Additionally, Don Quixote is inherently funny in ways that transcend the borders of nation, century, or genre. Throughout the book, Cervantes uses humour to entertain the reader and illuminate the plot. Chapter VIII includes perhaps the best-known example of this humour, the adventure of the windmills. Don Quixote mistakes windmills for giants, and subsequently attempts to charge and fight them. This results in a remarkably visual (for a novel) episode of slapstick humour, in which he and his horse Rocinante are caught in the sail of the first windmill they come to and flung to the ground. It may be the most iconic image of the knight’s blunders, but such succinct and clever amusement is not at all rare in Don Quixote; Cervantes often juxtaposes his protagonist’s illusions with reality to create situations of ironic humour. By threading the more serious messages about the world through these witty situations, the novel remains to this day consistently entertaining. Laughter is essential to escapism, and this book will undoubtedly make any reader laugh.
Don Quixote is inherently funny in ways that transcend the borders of nation, century, or genre. Throughout the book, Cervantes uses humour to entertain the reader and illuminate the plot.
At the same time, Don Quixote explores universal truths about human nature that enlighten the reader in ways only good storytelling can. The story is driven by Don Quixote’s yearning to create a legacy for himself, and in this way transcend mortality. His approach may be funny and imaginative, but at the root of his delusion is the deeply human fear of death and being forgotten. In Chapter LXXIV at the end of the Second Part, Cervantes makes the reader confront both the inevitability of death and the lasting impact of Don Quixote’s actions. The man must die, and in doing so acknowledge the reality of his madness; yet after years of bringing joy and excitement to those around him, his friends and family now beg him to continue the illusion, because he has changed their lives for the better, especially Sancho Panza’s. This ending shows that the message of Don Quixote cannot be reduced to a simplistic moral. Rather, Cervantes presents a complex view of truth and humanity, one which simultaneously recognizes the futility of seeking immortality and the power of a legacy made by stories. The nuance of this perspective resonates in 2022, as people have more access than ever to different modes of storytelling and leaving a permanent record of one’s life.
Another universal truth that makes Don Quixote essential is the need for more compassion in our interactions with one another. A particularly striking moment comes at the end of Chapter XXIII in the First Part. Don Quixote finds a madman in the Sierra Morena, known as Cardenio or The Ragged One of the Gloomy Face. Instead of fearing or disparaging this young man, as others have done, the protagonist embraces him. In the following chapter, he listens to Cardenio’s story with interest and sympathy. Their interaction is emblematic of the grace and chivalry with which Don Quixote approaches the world; perhaps it is part of his naivete, but it is also an admirable model for gaining greater understanding of others. It shows how listening to another’s story with compassion can bridge the political and ideological divisions we face today.
In fact, the emphasis on compassion is only one small way in which Cervantes provides enlightening social commentary that applies as much to our society as it did to his. Despite the harsh censorship of Spanish society at the time, the author managed to speak out against classism, labour exploitation, ableism, and sexism in the pages of Don Quixote. The dependent relationship between Sancho Panza and Don Quixote demonstrates how strongly the class hierarchy dictated people’s judgements and valuations of one another: something we still see in 2022, as those in poverty are looked down on for not working hard enough, although financial struggles are often determined by circumstances beyond their control. In some ways, Sancho fulfills the stereotype of being lazy, but he is also smarter, more reliable, and more moral than Don Quixote in many ways. In Chapter XXII, when they meet a chain gang of galley slaves, Don Quixote gives each one the chance to explain his story and how he ended up incarcerated. This is another example of storytelling as compassion. Since the late twentieth century, the prison industrial complex has linked poverty to incarceration, dehumanizing those subjected to either or both. Cervantes’ depiction of poor men and criminals as individuals worthy of attention and rights has much to teach us about how we view those cast out by society.
Cervantes’ depiction of poor men and criminals as individuals worthy of attention and rights has much to teach us about how we view those cast out by society.
Similarly, Don Quixote comments on the treatment of people with disabilities, which is still a major issue in modern society. In addition to being exiled, Cervantes himself did not have the use of his left arm, which resulted in a greater understanding of what it meant to be an outcast. This experience influences the theme of treatment of people with mental illness, which is seen throughout the book, as Don Quixote’s identity and belief in himself as a knight-errant is questioned, mocked, and ridiculed. At times the reader is meant to laugh along, but these instances also underscore the cruelty and discrimination of such ableist jokes.
Finally, the most compelling social commentary in the novel is the subversion of sexist gender norms, tropes, and expectations. Dulcinea del Toboso, while occupying the role of the damsel in distress, is in actuality a strong, rough farmworker. The way Don Quixote speaks about her is a satire of how often female characters exist only for men to project their desires onto. In contrast, Marcela is a woman who completely rejects the patriarchy and the expectations of women to get married and live subservient to their husbands, fathers, and other men. Her speech in Chapter XIV is an enlightening example of proto-feminism. The story of Ana Félix in Chapter LXIII, which includes crossdressing as well as the rejection of religious prejudice, is another instance of Cervantes subverting expectations and giving significant agency to his female characters. The stories of these women are captivating and persuasive. In 2022, it is important for us to know our history and recognize that strong women have been depicted in literature for hundreds of years.
Hence, this novel is more powerful now than it has ever been. Don Quixote provides escapism, universal truths, and social commentary that resonate in the twenty-first century at least as much as they did in the seventeenth. It is still essential to read Don Quixote in 2022 in order to experience the entertainment and enlightenment of good storytelling. Other novels have been and will be written that entertain or enlighten the reader, and a few even manage to achieve both at once. But all of them build upon the foundation laid by Cervantes hundreds of years ago.
