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... ably would not agree with the absolute quality of this statement, but there is some truth to the superlative. The adventures with the duke and duchess are the standard travails of knight-errantry. They involve a mythical flying horse, a giant, damsels in distress, and a fair seductive maiden. Their magnitude makes the other adventures of Don Quixote pale in comparison. Furthermore, the adventures are wildly popular.
The servants of the duke and duchess are so taken with the story that they not only work to build the visions of their masters, but they also add new elements to the fiction, like washing Don Quixote's beard. In addition to the participants, readers of Don Quixote delight in these adventures. They comprise about a fourth of the entire novel, and so must contribute to its larger success. Yet, in the end, the situations the duke and duchess create for Don Quixote are simplistic and formulaic devices used again and again in the romances of chivalry. Their storylines add nothing to the uniqueness or brilliance of Don Quixote; their sequel is not The Godfather Part Two, but rather Die Hard 2; not Henry IV Part I, but The Merry Wives of Windsor: the same vision, but blown up in proportion, and executed without thought.
We distinguish here between the creations of the duke and duchess and the reactions of Don Quixote and Sancho; the former are simplistic and formulaic, whereas the latter carry a deeply moral and virtuous message. However, before we can understand the full magnitude of Cervantes commentary, we must first examine the consequences of the duke and duchess productions. The power to entertain is also a power to influence in unforeseen ways. L. Fradenburg gives the popular perception of this concept: The phrase entertainment value usually implies three things: entertainment does have some kind of value; something that has entertainment value isnt very valuable otherwise; and (paradoxically) this very lack of value is what gives entertainment its ability to enchant and manipulate both masses and individuals. Entertainment now is always already lite [sic]; yet again, its triviality is held responsible for its power to stupefy an entire planet, raise the violence levels of entire populations, corrupt youth, and destroy cultural diversity.
The entertainment value of the first part of Don Quixote brings such joy to the duke and duchess that it drives them to forego any affairs of state or moral duties they may have to spend more time with their trivial adventures. The utter lack of thought in reading the basic facts of the adventures has the power to manipulate the moral fibers of all servants and friends of the duke and duchess save the priest, to whom we will return. In addition, the trivial way in which violence is depicted in the romances of chivalry has obviously influenced the duke and duchess, as they care not a whit for any of Don Quixote's injuries. In fact, even after his face left as full of holes as a sieve as the result of one of their pranks, the duke and duchess grieve not at his pain, but at the fact that it causes him to withdraw from their adventures for five days. Fradenburg explains: The problem is not that entertainment, being trivial, gives the brain such an easy time that it loses the ability to reason and reflect, but rather that entertainment is the very means whereby inattention is transformed into attention, indifference into the possibility of attachment, ignorance into a willingness to at least try it come on, its really good.
The duke and duchess are so enthralled with the concept of these adventures that they want more; the attractiveness of the entertaining world is extremely addictive. Cervantes sees this same power in entertainment. After all, Don Quixote is created out of a mad desire for the romances of chivalry. Quixote himself is in much the same situation as the duke and duchess.
All love chivalry, and all strive to remain within Quixote's fantastical creation. However, there is a distinct difference between Quixote's readings and the duke and duchess. The duke and duchess are obsessed with fun adventures, and, as Fradenburg puts it, are always lite. Quixote, on the other hand, is a more careful reader. He worries about the seams and scars that must be inflicted after so many battles, and is also deeply committed to the chivalric elements. The duke and duchess ignore any sense of virtue in their creations, whereas Quixote is constantly concerned with his faithfulness to Dulcinea, and his duty to protect the weak and oppressed, even going so far as to free the rightfully imprisoned.
For Cervantes, the attitude of the duke and duchess to amuse-at-all-costs is certainly harmful. As Nabokov and Bandera note, it is harmful to Don Quixote himself. However, Quixote is a character, and in placing himself as a knight-errant, necessarily exposes himself to this behavior. Furthermore, Quixote and Sancho are paid for their efforts, both in money (two hundred gold crowns) and with invaluable adventures to bulk their fame. But this is not the harm that concerns Cervantes.
Cervantes is worried about the readers of these adventures. Although the duke and duchess are the subject of social criticism too much money, too much idleness, very little virtue their adventures are very amusing, and enhance the novels effect. David Gushee sees that the imagined and depicted worlds encounter the journeying and struggling and wandering and developing souls of the consumers of culture. Thus, while some readers, like Quixote (or perhaps we should call him Quijao), may be able to see the problems with pure entertainment, others, like the duke and duchess, receive only hedonistic pleasure that encourages future thoughtless action in search of more pleasure. Gushee gives a modern parallel with the film Gladiator: The film stimulated much thought for me about the decadence of the Roman Empire and the appeal of the counter-cultural love ethic of the early Christian movement rapidly spreading in that context[but the reaction of my sons friends was that] it was real cool when guys got their heads chopped off. Cervantes shows that the influence of entertainment on the unthinking or undeveloped mind is certainly dangerous (the duke and duchess), and can even be harmful on the thinking mind (Quixote).
IV. Cervantes Moral Entertainment Cervantes, aware of the power of entertainment, infuses his novel with a deeper moral consciousness. He wants to be the responsible producer in contrast to the duke and duchess and so many authors of romances of chivalry. How to do this, and still keep the novel entertaining, is certainly a difficult task.
However, he is aided by his characters, and in particular, Don Quixote himself. Quixote's complete and utter dedication to virtue certainly resonates with the reader, and so Cervantes must tap into Quixote's virtue to show the morality in the adventures of the duke and duchess. Cervantes makes his first delineation between virtue and the actions of the duke and duchess by surrounding the ducal episodes with religious imagery. The episodes begin with a dinner between the duke, duchess, Don Quixote, Sancho, and a priest.
However, the priest refuses to be a part of the adventures in which the duke and duchess wish to take part, warning the duke, See, your excellency will have to give account to God for what this good man does and then leaving, never returning to the castle again. And as soon as Quixote leaves the castle, he runs into men carrying carved images of Christian saints, and after seeing them, remarks, I take it as a happy omen, brothers, to have seen what I have perhaps with improved luck and a sounder mind I might direct my steps in a better path than I am following at present. The absence of any sane moral balancing presence during the ducal adventures is made even more obvious by the fact that these Christian moments are really the only two times in the entire work that truly religious elements enter into the work (the priest in Don Quixote's town has a significantly secular presence in the book, disguising himself and avidly consuming romances of chivalry). In addition to defining the episodes with the duke and duchess as a valley of anti-Christian activity, Cervantes also invests a lot of care in Quixote's virtuous responses to their pranks. In particular, Quixote continues to stick to the virtues he sees in knight-errantry, even in the face of horrifyingly embarrassing experiences. The allure of the young Altisidora surely stirs some longing within Quixote's loins, yet the warmly wooed Don Quixote began to feel alarm, and instead of yielding to his yearnings, he continues his adherence to a strict sense of virtue.
And although it seems like everyone within the castle is mad, with Don Quixote himself the maddest, opening the door for the lust every other character now has for creating adventures, when someone living at the castle has a real problem that necessitates a real solution, she chooses Don Quixote as her only savior. Doa Rodriguez seeks out Don Quixote to right the wrongs done to her child by an unfaithful suitor, and he takes this charge as seriously as everything else he has done. This adventure proves Quixote's honesty and virtue more than any other he is truly trying to follow what he sees as the good of knight-errantry. The adventure also shows the absolute commitment that the duke and duchess have to pure and unadulterated entertainment. Since the real suitor cannot be found, they select an actor, at random. When that actor, To silos, fails to fulfill his role, they react violently and throw him in jail for two weeks.
This contrast in reactions gives Cervantes the critique he needs against the amusement-at-all-costs mission of the duke and duchess. For Cervantes, in creating his wildly entertaining Don Quixote, has also given us a paragon of moral virtue in Don Quixote. V. Conclusion On May 7, 2002, Don Quixote was voted the worlds best work of fiction by a poll of popular modern fiction writers, including Salman Rushdie, John Irving, John le Carr, and Norman Mailer, beating the second-place work by more than fifty percent of the votes. This award certainly points to its lasting entertainment value, as Don Quixote has enchanted and manipulated audiences for centuries. Cervantes recognized his power to entertain his audience, and at the same time, to infuse them with a powerful moral virtuosity.
As T. S. Eliot said, Mankind cannot take very much reality. In order to understand the plights of humanity, we immerse ourselves in fiction, which, in its verisimilitude, gives us better understanding of ourselves.
Professional and successful authors of fiction understand the responsibilities and consequences that come with the ability to entertain, as they receive letters about the influence of their work in peoples lives. These authors see Cervantes careful use of his power in Don Quixote. Cervantes upholds the moral virtues, but subverts the moral utilities of the Inquisition. The duke and duchess are perfect examples of perfect citizens in the eyes of the Inquisition: they are sane, they support a priest, and they engage in reading the acceptable literature as determined by the Inquisition. Yet, Cervantes shows that their connection to Christian virtue is nonexistent. Don Quixote, on the other hand, is an enemy of the Inquisition.
But he is the only main character who acts at all times with morality in mind. Cervantes creates entertainment, and when his reader is bubbling over with joy in reading the adventures, he will think at least try it but instead of merely envisioning violence and lusty affairs, he will be immersed with the virtue and honor that surround Don Quixote. Selected Works Bandera, Cesreo. Healthy Bodies in Not-So-Healthy Minds. Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 2. 2 (1982): 165 - 70. Cervantes, Miguel de.
Don Quixote, ed. Joseph R. Jones and Kenneth Douglas. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981.
El Safari, Ruth. Distance and Control in Don Quixote: A Study in Narrative Technique. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Dept. of Romance Languages, 1975. Fradenburg, L. O.
Arrange, Entertainment Value, Public Humanities Initiative Conference on Entertainment Value, May 3 - 4, 2001. Available web Gushee, David P. (2000). Whats At Stake in Crafting Entertainment. In Moral Leadership 2. 2 [electronic journal]. [cited 8 May 2002 ]. Available web Johnson, Samuel. Essays from the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968. Knee, Catherine. Cruel and Crude: Nabokov Reading Cervantes. Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 13. 2 (1993): 93 - 104. Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Cruelty and Mystification.
In Lectures on Don Quixote. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovic h, 1983. Raleigh, Sir Walter Alexander. Don Quixote. < web > May 2002. Robertson, Pat.
The 700 Club, December 7, 1995.
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