Exploring the Varying Perceptions of Honor in Don Quixote - Essay Example

Exploring the varying perceptions of Honor in Don Quixote The list of literary world’s most influentialworks and the history of Spanish Golden Age would be incomplete without the mentioning of Don Quixote. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha or simply Don Quixote is a Spanish novel that has been universally declared as an evergreen literary masterpiece and the greatest work of literature ever written. Don Quixote was authored by the legendary Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and the novel was published in two volumes in the year 1605 and 1615 respectively. It was a path defining novel that laid the foundation of the modern western literature and introduced a plethora of new terms, narration methods and authoring styles that the literary world is benefitting from till date. Outwardly Don Quixote can be termed as satirical and a parody but actually it entails thought provoking and theological themes such as the importance of preserving personal honor in a way that it encourages personal growth and benefits humanity. Honor is discussed comprehensively in Don Quixote and encompasses the entire structure of this novel. It is the main force that provokes the protagonist Don Quixote/Don Quijote to embark on an adventurous journey. This paper explores that in Don Quixote Cervantes stressed on highlighting the abstract or idealistic concept of honor, and urged that honor should be understood as an inherent characteristic instead of Honra, that is, a socially compliable reputation. Many characters in Don Quixote are striving for conserving personal honor according to their own motives, which are greatly driven by the socially constructed codes of nobility. Cervantes, however, attempted to present honor in its core essence, which is abstract or idealistic, and established characters that endorsed both the customary and idealistic concept of nobility to explain the difference. Honor was an integral aspect of Spanish culture during that era but Cervantes believed that the ongoing norms and rules that declared a person as noble and respectable were highly flawed and debatable. In this context, the character of Don Quixote subscribed to the idealistic concept of honor and he believed that knighthood/ chivalry was the perfect way for satisfying personal honor. Quixote believed that an integral rule for upholding honor is to place a “barrier between “inclinations and virtue” (Cervantes 752). The other characters are mostly concerned about personal honor only to exist nobly in the society since in Cervantes’ era honor was visualized as an expression of external status and constitutively personal sense of honor was directly proportional to the inherited social role. Some characters that endorsed this facet of honor were Sancho Panza, the Duke and Duchess and Anselmo. Sancho Panza expected a reward for his services that would gain him honor and a noble status in society. This motive exhibits a materialistic approach and Sancho’s thirst for material wealth becomes evident from the first few adventures. The Duke and the Duchess were malicious aristocrats who believe that personal honor can be sustained by degrading those who did not match their status. They humiliated Quixote and considered him as an object of amusement that provided them relief from the otherwise serious political environment. Anselmo believed that verifying his wife’s chastity was important because for him personal sense of honor could be contended only by following the socially imposed rules. He tested his wife Camilla so that he “shall be able to say that… the virtuous woman of whom the sage says 'Who shall find her?' has fallen to my lot” (Cervantes 306). For Dorothea/Princess Micomicona honor served as an inherent characteristic and she rejected the externally implicated social pressures of nobility by choosing to stay in the mountains after being abandoned by Don Fernando. She preferred “the society of rocks and brakes” over “that of any human being” because it permitted her to complain about her misfortune “to Heaven” since “there is none on earth to look to for counsel in doubt, comfort in sorrow” (Cervantes 258). This shows the conflicting perception about honor that Cervantes’ individual characters endorsed in Don Quixote. In Don Quixote, the character that showed extreme concern in personal sense of honor was Don Quixote because it was his intense urge for attaining honor, nobility, glory and respect which set everything in motion. He considered chivalry as the perfect gateway for satisfying personal honor; thought highly of him and took pride in his quest. “I know who I am,” retorted Don Quixote, “I know that I may be all the Twelve Peers of France and even all the Nine Worthies, since my achievements surpass all that they have done all together” (Damrosch and Pike 1575). Don Quixote believed that being concerned about personal sense of honor is as important as freedom for which “one can and should risk one’s life” (Cervantes 839).Quixote is selfless, heroic and determined but the world think of him as a mad man just because he imagine common people as knights. For Dulcinea del Toboso, Don Quixote was ready to “do the most famous deeds of chivalry that have been witnessed, are to be witnessed and shall be witnessed in this world.” (Damrosch and Pike 1575) However, the motive behind Quixote’s search for honor is not romantic but being associated with a lady was deemed mandatory for a truly honorable knight. Quixote considers himself a “wondrous chronicler” and anticipated the “happy moment” when his actions become “famous exploits, worthy to be engraved on sheets of bronze, carved on slabs of marble and painted on boards of wood as monument for all posterity” (Damrosch and Pike 1553). He ardently followed all the codes of knighthood in order to protect his personal honor. For instance, when Quixote learns that his squire Sancho will be riding a donkey instead of a mule, he instantly promises himself to “provide him with a more honorable mount at the earliest opportunity” (Damrosch and Pike 1571). Quixote was ready to fight for his honor and instructs Panza to aid him only if the attackers are “rabble and common people” (Damrosch and Pike 1574). Thus, it can be established that Don Quixote was a quintessential male protagonist whose utmost priority was preserving personal sense of honor. Cervantes also pointed out that if personal sense of honor is preferred over everything, then this drives behaviors either positively or negatively since the emotion becomes much stronger than a mere motivational factor. Quixote so religiously wanted to sustain his personal honor according to the code of chivalry that “he almost forgot about his hunting and even running his property, and his foolish curiosity reached such extremes that he sold acres of arable land to buy these books of chivalry” (Damrosch and Pike 1549). Quixote’s quests were also the outcome of his obsession. Sancho Panza was driven by the urge of attaining high status through economic prosperity to such an extent that he decided to assist Quixote on his seemingly dangerous journey and acted blindly on his orders. The duke and duchess became so mean that their wicked jokes affected the beliefs and desires of Don Quixote and Sancho terribly. Anselmo’s actions also got overwhelmingly controlled by his obsession for personal honor compelling him to test his wife’s loyalty in an unethical manner, which proved devastating for both his marriage and physical existence. Dorothea, on the other hand, believed in the divine power more than social impositions and acted according to her conscience instead of following Don Ferdinand obsessively and her levelheadedness eventually united them. Cervantes laid emphasis on the fact that such an obsessive compulsion for personal sense of honor proves detrimental in the longer run and often affects the individual and those who matter to him/her negatively. He presented the probability of devastating aftereffects by associating unfavorable endings with those who followed the wrong approach such as Quixote and Anselmo and positive ending to those who recognized honor in its righteous sense such as Panza and Dorothea. Don Quixote’s obsessive approach on protecting personal honor led to his downfall eventually and along the course of his journey he traumatized many and helped only a few. For instance, due to Quixote’s intervention, poor Andres was “tied back to the evergreen oak and flogged half dead” by his master the “lusty Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar “and ultimately an unemployed Andres “departed in tears” (Damrosch and Pike 1562). On the other hand, Panza recognized the absurdness of the social norms that symbolized honor and met a better ending because he “didn’t take much notice of those there laws” and believed in “divine and human justice” and thus, accepted his life as it was meant to be (Damrosch and Pike 1574). By including the Muleteer’s story, Cervantes criticized the unfair system that mixed honor with social status due to which a devoted yet low-class girl Dona Clara could not marry “the son of a gentleman of Aragon” and both lovers suffered (Cervantes 407). The accounts of duke and duchess in Don Quixote also represent the cruel attitude of upper-class aristocrats. Anselmo’s “foolish and ill–advised desire” robs him of his wife and life and he was “left without wife, friend, or servants…abandoned by the heaven above him” (Cervantes 341). It can be concluded that in Don Quixote, most characters defined honor in a shallow manner where seeking social acceptance, higher status and fame mattered more than inner satisfaction. At the time when Don Quixote was being written, the aristocratic class was automatically declared upright, dignified, philosophically viable and free from any sort of malice. Sidelining peasants, shepherds and lowly communities as less dignified beings was a custom. Women were also objectified as mere vessels of honor and instant perpetrators of dishonor. Therefore, the primary objective behind Don Quixote was to present a realistic approach towards the virtue of honor. Through Quixote’s defeat after every quest of his, Cervantes established the point that blindly adopting the ancestral norms that guaranteed nobility will lead to damage only. Cervantes presented lowly goatherds, ordinary people like inn-keepers and a mad man like Quixote as noble beings ready to fight for their honor and aristocrats like the Duke and Duchess as slaves of socially constructed norms having no respect for the actual spirit of honor. In Don Quixote, beneath the cloak of humor and enthrallment lie subtle hints of realism, sarcasm, and wistfulness along with a strong message that obsessiveness when encircles any virtue can turn the individual into a mad man. Cervantes tried to highlight the distinction between honor and honra (reputation) because he had realized that the abstractness of this virtue was fading away from the literature and society simultaneously and thus, it required acknowledgement. Works Cited Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Interactive Media, 2012. Print. Damrosch, David, and David L Pike. The Longman Anthology of World Literature, Compact Edition. Longman Publishing Group , 2007. Print. Read More