Complimentary Antagonists: How Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Construct Their Own Reality Braden Ruddy

Don Quixote is among the most influential novels ever written. It explores a myriad of imperative themes that profoundly effect human nature. Such gargantuan themes include the shifting boundaries of truth and illusion, how society views justice and morality, and the eternal quest for love. Yet, underling all of these paramount themes are the interactions and follies of two seemingly simple, yet sensationally labyrinthine characters. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are, perhaps, the most convoluted, and at the same time, lucid main characters within literature. Both of these characters are present in every one of us, we all posses the conflicting qualities found in Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra carefully constructs these two characters to personify both the basic human themes of idealism and realism, and has them underscore and epitomize the larger question of reality.

Cervantes makes evident the maturation and mutations of real life people, while satirizing chivalry and traditional epic form. Cervantes is able to take fairly basic situations, and elevate them to epic proportions with the use of Don Quixote's imagination. These epic stories differ from the traditional epic stories of Homer and...