"There was nothing in the inn but some pieces of fish, called in Castile pollack, in Andalusia codfish, in some parts ling, and in others troutlets, for they had no other fish to offer him. "Provided there are many little trout", answered Don Quixote, "They will supply the place of one salmon thought, for it is the same to me whether I receive eight single reals one piece of eight. Moreover, those troutlets may turn out to be like unto veal. Which is better than beef, and kid, which is superior to goat. Be that as it may, let it come in quickly, for the toil and weight of arms cannot be sustained without the good government of the guts."
This scene is all apart of Don Quixote's mass delusion of granduer. He takes the most pathetic bit of fish, names it five times, then says it will be as impressive as any finer meal and his only request is that it "come in quickly". We should worry about the man who can attribute such importance to such a small thing, but we should also learn from this example a level of gratitude that most of us never reach. Cervantes is going to beat poor Quixote up over and over again until he finally breaks his spirit for optimism towards the end. And while we might be witnessing a man unraveling from the pressures of society, maybe we should cut him a bit of slack. I wonder if Cervantes feels that Quixote is a bit of himself. What writer of fiction has not been made to feel trivial for their ideas? Is not the act of writing fiction a coping mechanism of its own kind?
Authors are repetitive when they want us to take notice of a moment. How is having your main character be repetitive any different? Is Cervantes really teaching a lesson, or subjecting himself to the repetitive negatively most writers have faced?
This scene is all apart of Don Quixote's mass delusion of granduer. He takes the most pathetic bit of fish, names it five times, then says it will be as impressive as any finer meal and his only request is that it "come in quickly". We should worry about the man who can attribute such importance to such a small thing, but we should also learn from this example a level of gratitude that most of us never reach. Cervantes is going to beat poor Quixote up over and over again until he finally breaks his spirit for optimism towards the end. And while we might be witnessing a man unraveling from the pressures of society, maybe we should cut him a bit of slack. I wonder if Cervantes feels that Quixote is a bit of himself. What writer of fiction has not been made to feel trivial for their ideas? Is not the act of writing fiction a coping mechanism of its own kind?
Authors are repetitive when they want us to take notice of a moment. How is having your main character be repetitive any different? Is Cervantes really teaching a lesson, or subjecting himself to the repetitive negatively most writers have faced?
Either way, how can you NOT love this Hufflepuff of a knight? I want to strangle him in all his Derpy optimism.
P.S. About that title:
Well that is embarrassing. Now I have to reconsider Umbrella Chronicles titling and its potential literary reference of its own. I signed up for this though, the whole see-all-the-referential-stuff thing and divining its meaning. Hooray for literature degrees.
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