Don Quixote — Mad Man or the Everyday Man
By Greg Evans
I’m reading Don Quixote. I’m on page 66 of 1,142. Some of you might sneer and think that I think I am haughty and sophisticated because I am taking on this behemoth of canon literature- and I did think that, but only at first. After page 41, I realized that there really isn’t anything snooty at all about Don Quixote. He is the everyday man. His odd persona, like so many people, developing over time; it wasn’t there at birth. The old nobleman was not always bat-shit crazy, as far as we can tell. A guy like Don Quixote, a nobleman in the grips of something analogous to a mid-life crisis. He is the high school boy rejected by the pretty blonde or the married man who spent his young, fresh, early adult years just going through the motions of a mundane marriage, a nagging wife, kids who don’t talk to him, and no regular sex. Now he has a drippy belly that is impossible to get rid of, aching joints, fatigue, and a mountain of regret. He didn’t go out an buy a red convertible and get his hair dyed because neither existed, otherwise this novel would be drastically different. Instead, he decides to go on a quest for adventure as a knight-errant, like the heroes he read about in his childhood. He sees himself as a man of honor and willing to fight for the heart of Dulcinea del Toboso, his idealized love interest, who is really just a plain peasant girl named Aldonza Lorenzo. Most likely the young lady who savagely rejected his advances.
Underneath the layers of difficult jargon and archaic speech patterns, we see that Don Quixote is a man scorned, or mentally ill, or a little bit of both. In today’s world he would have been given some kind of pretentious medical diagnosis, such as Schizophreniform Disorder or Schizoaffective Disorder, or maybe Psychotic Depression or even Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (from trying to find sanity in the world of 17th-century Spanish nobility, for example, the peculiarity of ten utensils at a table placement, per person, when all you really need is three), or simply a broken heart that he was never able to come to terms with. So instead of drinking away his woes or becoming morbidly obese, he goes mad and becomes a knight. In the 1600’s, the best medical diagnosis came from his loyal squire, Sancho Panza, “He has windmills in his head.”
Sancho Panza tries to talk some sense into him, but to no avail. Quixote is determined to win each battle that presents itself, beginning with the windmills. “Fly not, ye base and cowardly miscreants, for, he is but a single knight who now attacks you… I will make you pay for your insolence.” Those are fightin’ words. It was then that Don Quixote charged. The windmill shattered his lance and tossed both him and his steed Rozinante, to the ground.
Earlier, they had come upon an inn, and Don Quixote assumed everyone was intrigued by the celebrity in their midst (him, the knight-errant). They weren’t. He also mistakes the innkeeper for the Lord of the Castle and asks to be dubbed a knight. The innkeeper, though not having actual power to dub Don Quixote a knight, agrees to have a vigil for him. Don Quixote thinks it is real, everyone else knows that it is fake. Don Quixote removes his armor and places it near a horse trough. Two mule drivers, wishing to use the trough to water their animals, move the armor. Don Quixote sees his armor as sacred and view the muleteers as offending his honor and diminishing his vigil. They must pay. He attacks and clubs them on the head with his lance. The innkeeper, realizing that Don Quixote’s brain was “none of the soundest,” quickly sets up the knighting ceremony to dub him a knight so he could be on his way. The innkeeper performed the mock ceremony using his accounting ledger and a candle. Don Quixote leaves the inn believing he is a knight.
Looking at it from the innkeeper’s perspective, it was about self-preservation and the safety of the inn’s guests. It’s like passing a guy on a street in New York City talking to a tree. You stare a tad bit too long and he picks up on it. People don’t like to be stared at. Not even a crazy bum. He then sees you and begins to talk to you and approach. You have now fallen on his radar, and suddenly, you are the only person that exists in his twisted universe. The guy is obviously either doped out of his mind, or eleven donuts short of a dozen and your night is about to get, potentially, very interesting. Before you realize it, your personal space is violated. That smell. Gag reflex, immediate. Anxiety on the edge of a panic attack envelops you like falling through thin ice into frigid water. You give him a dollar hoping it will be satisfactory, hoping he will then move on to the next unfortunate soul.
There is a lot you can learn from Don Quixote. He does what he wants. He doesn’t worry about the Joneses. He goes after the woman he wants, whether real or not, with all the energy and enthusiasm you expect of a knight-errant. He dresses in style. He has extreme self confidence. He desires adventure and is willing to find it, even if it means creating it from nothing. And he is brave enough to fight for his honor. Plus, I doubt there is a heterosexual guy on earth who hasn’t visualized the perfect woman. Sometimes it's a well-known woman such as Madelyn Cline, or a former classmate, or co-worker, your best friend’s wife, the mail woman, Cherry Cola at the Dollhouse, so in that sense, you are no different in 2026 than Don Quixote in 1605.
Is it any wonder this novel has been around for as long as it has? Go out, get yourself a magnifying glass and you too can read it and pick up some tips on how to live from Don Quixote.