The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

O He possesses epic arete of good birth, good looks, strength, etc.

2,) This arete is put in the service of the Law, to rescue the unfortunate, protect the innocent, and combat the wicked.

His motives are three: a) the desire for glory

the love of justice

the love of an individual woman who judges and rewards.

He suffers exceptionally; first, in his adventures and collisions with the lawless; secondly, in his tempta­tions to lawlessness in the form of unchastity; and thirdly, in his exceptionally difficult erotic romance.

In the end he succeeds in this world. Vice is punished and virtue is rewarded by the lady of his heart.

When we first meet Don Quixote he is a) poor, b) not a knight, c) fifty, d) has nothing to do except hunt and read romances about Knight-Errantry. Manifestly, he is the op­posite of the heroes he admires, i.e., he is lacking in the epic arete of birth, looks, strength, etc. His situation, in fact, is aesthetically uninteresting except for one thing: his passion is great enough to make him sell land to buy books. This makes him aesthetically comic. Religiously he is tragic, for he is a hearer not a doer of the word, the weak man guilty in his imagination of Promethean pride. Now suddenly he goes mad, i.e., he sets out to become what he admires. Aesthetically this looks like pride; in fact, religiously, it is a conversion, an act of faith, a taking up of his cross.

The Quixotic Madness and the Tragic Madness

The worldly villain like Macbeth is tempted by an arete he possesses to conquer this world of the nature of which he has a shrewd idea. His decisions are the result of a calculation of the probabilities of success, each success increases his madness but in the end he fails and is brought to despair and death. (Don Quixote is a) lacking in arete, b) has a fantastic con­ception of this world, c) always meets with failure yet is never discouraged, d) suffers himself intentionally and makes others suffer only unintentionally.

The Quixotic Madness and the Comic Madness

The comic rogue declares: the world=that which exists to give me money, beauty, etc. I refuse to suffer by being thwarted. He is cured by being forced to suffer through colli­sion with the real world.

Don Quixote declares: The world = that which needs my existence to save it at whatever cost to myself. He comes into collision with the real world but insists upon continuing to suffer. He becomes the Knight of the Doleful Countenance but never despairs.

Don Quixote and Hamlet

Hamlet lacks faith in God and in himself. Consequendy he must define his existence in terms of others, e.g., I am the man whose mother married his uncle who murdered his father. He would like to become what the Greek tragic hero is, a creature of situation. Hence his inability to act, for he can only "act," i.e., play at possibilities.

Don Quixote is the antithesis of an actor, being completely incapable of seeing himself in a role. Defining his situation in terms of his own character, he is completely unreflective.

Madness and Faith

To have faith in something or someone means

that the object of faith is not manifest. If it becomes manifest, then faith is no longer required.

the relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.

Don Quixote exemplifies both, a) He never sees things that aren't there (delusion) but sees them differently, e.g., windmills as giants, sheep as armies, puppets as Moors, etc. b) He is the only individual who sees them thus.

Faith and Idolatry

The idolater makes things out to be stronger than they really are so that they shall be responsible for him, e.g., he might worship a windmill for its giandike strength. Don Quixote never expects things to look after him; on the con­trary he is always making himself responsible for things and people who have no need of him and regard him as an im­pertinent old meddler.

Faith and Despair

People are tempted to lose faith a) when it fails to bring worldly success, b) when the evidence of their senses and feelings seem against it. Don Quixote a) is consistently de­feated yet persists, b) between his fits of madness he sees that the windmills are not giants but windmills, etc., yet, instead of despairing, he says, "Those cursed magicians delude me, first drawing me into dangerous adventures by the appearance of things as they really are, and then presently changing the face of things as they please." His supreme test comes when Sancho Panza describes a country wench, whom Don Quixote sees correctly as such, as the beautiful Princess Dulcinea and in spite of his feelings concludes that he is enchanted and that Sancho Panza is right.

Don Quixote and the Knight-Errant