The image of Don Quixote: the manifestation of the best intentions and aspirations of man

Life is just as ridiculous as the novel about Don Quixote is ironic. No, really - how else to explain the mass of misunderstandings that occurred with this work? The eternal image of Don Quixote excites the minds even now, in the 21st century. What is the secret, why does a man who has done so much fatal stupidity become an example of humanism? Let's try to understand.

What the sad story about

Written purely as a satire and a parody, the work becomes the most important novel of its century; Everyone reads it as a profound philosophical parable. The hero whom Cervantes conceived as an absurd, but still negative character, becomes an example of a dreamer, a revolutionary, an altruist; In it all the dreamers and the easy-going people are composed, including the author himself, who filled Don Quixote with all the features he found in himself. The protagonist's companion, his best friend, Sancho, a dirty peasant dreaming of wealth, turns into a symbol of the people and his infinite wisdom.

So, in his estate is a middle-aged nobleman Alonso Kehano. All his free time he spends on reading knightly novels, although the institution of knighthood disappeared a hundred years ago. At some point, he realizes that he is ready to give his life for all the ideals that he encountered in books. He decides to become a knight.

Kekhano finds himself a horse (as old as a wreck, like himself) - Rosinante, acquires a sensible, but dreaming of money squire named Sancho Panza. The knight finds the lady of the heart and, calling himself the sonorous "Don Quixote", is sent to complete his exploits.

But these exploits are ridiculous and full of insanity: a battle with gigantic windmills, an attack on monks-ghosts, the "salvation" of a girl from her servants - "evil robbers".

Despite the invented Sancho title, "Don Quixote, Knight of the Sorrowful Image", travelers are only objects for ridicule. The main intrigues are built by the student Samson Carrasco. In the second third of the novel, he was defeated by our hero in the course of a duel, which the villain himself created as an evil staging. This hurt the young man's pride, that now he dreams of revenge.

The student encourages the nobility to play a performance in front of Don Quixote - it's fun, and it's fair. Passing through a thousand humiliations, inconspicuous for himself, at the court, the Knight of the Sorrowful Image (by that time already the Knight of Lions) fights with the Knight of the Moon - and loses. The armor of the winner is on Samson. He demands of Don Quixote to renounce his wanderings and travels.

As a result, the old man quietly dies in bed. He knows that he has done stupid things - but he is sure that he is still a good person, that the image of Don Quixote is a bright spot in the dark world. By that time, not only he thinks so, but also the weeping servants, led by the faithful squire Sancho.

Change of relations

The image of Don Quixote in the novel by Cervantes Was originally humorous. The writer himself spoke about what creates a counterbalance to that "high", pseudopaphous literature that flooded the bookshelves of his contemporaries.

Therefore, he tried to make his novel as low-lying and mundane, the so-called "picaresque". And initially it was perceived. Characteristic image Don Quixote was given unambiguous - over the novel laughed the whole of Spain.

However, in time, after the death of Cervantes, a new reading of the image was born in the minds of people. And the German romantics are to blame for this, who found in the wandering knight the symbol of their entire philosophy. For them, Don Quixote became a rushing dreamy soul in a world of dirty realism.

It is this thought that, being filled, developed in the world and beyond. And now Turgenev puts Don Quixote on one level with Hamlet, praising his desire to fight for the sake of the idea.

Already in the twentieth century, the argument about the Knight of the Sad image continues. Not only philosophers and writers want to speak about the problem of his relations with the world, but also psychologists who find in the "kihotstvo" a lot of interesting things.

And till now every year Don Quixote is losing our comic and fervor before our eyes, turning more and more into a tragic and misunderstood figure.

Influence on World Literature

Don Quixote is an eternal image in literature, and this is the main achievement of Cervantes. Without wanting to do this, he gave the world the most ridiculous eccentric who was so needed. It is to Cervantes that we owe the "savages" in the books of the Enlightenment, when separation from society or a different view has ceased to be considered negative. By the way, it was the image of Don Quixote that served as inspiration for Dostoevsky when working on the "Idiot".

But no less important is the merit of Cervantes as a writer who brought a novel to the literary world in the format in which we now know it. Thanks to him, the book has become a work with a long history, many lines and strong changes in the life of the characters.

Eternal Wanderer

First, we should consider the most superficial symbolic variant - the image of Don Quixote as the idea of an eternal traveler. This is a person whose life should be connected with the road. There is simply no other way out. And what is most interesting, this person grows from the "bookworm".

And he does not lie to himself and is not deceived. For him, privations and problems on the way are true happiness. And Don Quixote himself notices this, accentuating attention. He is even happy in adversity, because the same people were in knightly novels.

The inner romantic

What do romantics see when reading the masterpiece of Don Quixote? The analysis of the work begins with a discussion of how much the protagonist coincides with their inner world. After all, for them, the image of a knight is in itself an integral part of philosophy. And here the "hero of the sword and shield" is also rejected, not understood, expelled from society.

What a romanticist will not erect this image on his flag! After all, each of them is sure that the world of dreams is truly real, and your own fantasy mixed with feelings should be placed above anything. The struggle of Don Quixote is a spit in the face of reality - cruel, dirty and rude; This is a battle with windmills in the name of common good. This is a lost war, but we must be inspired by the fact that the Knight of the Sorrowful Image died happy!

Man of Power

However, the eternal image of Don Quixote lies not only in romance and wanderings, not only in these two gentle features of man. After all, the question can be approached on the other hand, if you see in the hero of Cervantes also the power.

Yes, yes, it is in this feeble and old dreamer. In the middle of him lives endless courage, and this, perhaps, the main thing that Don Quixote learned from knightly novels. Remember, he at least once whined, groaned, exclaimed? Of the stories of the nobility of wandering warriors, Don Quixote took the most important.

And let his ideals and wrong, and let him insane, but the image of Don Quixote Will forever be enveloped in masculinity and strength, unshakable will to fight for their ideals. He, including a revolutionary, who knows how to fight to the end in the name of his way of life.

Freedom above all

An important theme in the novel was the Europeans of the Enlightenment. For them, the problems of the work began to play in new colors.

The fact is that philosophers and writers of the time did not put anything higher than freedom. For them, this was the main value, the main criterion for assessing happiness. And, as noticeably from the name of the period itself, they were obliged to dispose of freedom within the framework of acquiring new knowledge.

Of course, through this prism, they looked at Don Quixote. An ever-wandering knight, seeking truth and not constrained by any framework, was for them literally a find. He was immediately declared dying for the right to freedom of expression by man, opposed by a stupid and incomprehensible society.

Despite the fact that it was during the Enlightenment that the image of the hero (Don Quixote) was enveloped in the aura of tragedy and detachment, yet he was still perceived as a comedic character. And if you understand the relationship of the knight and squire Sancho, you can find an even deeper and interesting theory.

The clash of the soul and mind

However, the image of the hero would be incomplete without his faithful friend, who, as is well known, must have every great literary character. Here the squire Sancho Panza gives a new look at the wandering madman.

Together they create a dualistic symbol of the soul and mind. Rationalism Sancho, it would seem, must cruelly beat the sensuous Don Quixote. However, in fact they create a strong union of loyal friends. Why does Cervantes serve both symbols in this way, when in life we meet with a cruel enmity between the soul and the mind?

And the main secret here is that both sides are independent here. No, not from each other, not at all - they are distant from the opinions of people around. Don Quixote and Sancho live in their world, where together they are in harmony.

This is where the thinkers of the Enlightenment found interest. For them, the idea of mutual coexistence of mind and soul was the solution of many posed philosophical problems. And in ordinary life they can not be in harmony precisely because of the shackles of external factors.

The antagonism of Samson Carrasco

If you want to know what a person is, do not necessarily look at his friends. Where the enemy will tell you more. And here the image of Carrasco fully describes Don Quixote. The spiteful, vindictive and mocking student looks in contrast to the Knight of the Sorrowful Image even lower than it really is.

His desire to harm the protagonist, his disgusting character, underscores the nobility of Don Quixote for us. After all, in the end, Samson himself flirts himself in the proposed circumstances and becomes such a dark reflection of the main character. It is in the image of the Knight of the Moon that he defeats Don Quixote, thereby ... recognizing his victory. The fact that you can drive a madman only by his own rules.

View as a religious figure

Of course, such an ambiguous character could not but find a religious interpretation. The image of Don Quixote in the novel by Cervantes of such a reading originally certainly did not assume, but over time, it began to see the martyr and the saint. It would seem, for what? However, such statements are not far from the truth, because the prototype of the wandering knight could well be holy fools (saints who did not obey the church dogmas).

However, the Spaniards, where Cervantes's novel comes from, go even further - they compare the protagonist, Don Quixote, with the protagonist of the New Testament. In the Knight of the Sorrowful Image, they see the display of the mercy and self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Whether this is true is a very controversial issue, but it is certainly possible to find parallels.

Conclusion

What is most important in Don Quixote is how deep the image of the protagonist. All versions of his reading are true and laid down in the text initially. Everyone will see in him what he wants to see.

For each of these versions, you could write a separate article. And what to say - already wrote a lot. However, in any case, the image of Don Quixote is a manifestation of man's best intentions and aspirations. Each of them, albeit briefly, is described above.

We can only continue to analyze and think about the way of life of the last European knight. Were he just mad or ...?