In Class Activity or Online Discussion: Don Quixote Literary Quick Take
Overview
The literary quick takes are weekly discussions and in-class activities that I use to frame the text for the students. This is mostly formative and graded based on engagement.
Literary Quick Takes
I use this for group discussion in both online and in-class formats. It is intended to allow students to explore the meaning of the text in relation to themselves and to engage in meaningful discussion with peers.
When it comes to Don Quixote, there is enough to discuss to last an entire semester. However, within the meta-layers of the Menippean Satire mentioned in the analysis, there lies an important question for us, and it relates to Becker’s Heroic Systems. It should be clear how the trope of a chivalric knight, especially regarding Quijano, an elderly middle-class hidalgo, fits into the concept of a Heroic System. Quijano is certainly “denying” the doom of not only himself but his country.
He laments the degradation of their honor (the way the populace is treated and the suffering of the average man and woman, especially women), the denial of their history and tradition (wherein, the burning of his books reflects the Spanish inquisitions expulsion of Islamic and Jewish residents, their culture, and contribution), and, of course, the meaninglessness of his own life up until that point.
But it is farcical, right? Please watch this video that outlines some key features of the text:
It ends with an important note on the power of the imagination; to make this point a little clearer, please watch this video explaining a very common phenomenon: the placebo effect:
This video explains what the placebo effect is, and how it can affect scientific studies, but it is also missing one key point; do you already know?
The mind accomplished what the medicine could not, and thus, belief, quite literally, affects reality. This is the underpinning of the Menippean satire of Don Quixote. Cervantes himself begins his text from a place of pessimism; he lambastes the chivalric codes of the past and the outdated ideas that have stagnated the once-great Spain. However, by the time Cervantes is writing Part Two, a realization has donned on him: through the power of imagination, Quixote allowed people the space to change through his idealism because it allows them a space to believe. An innkeeper is a castle Lord, prostitutes are fair maidens, a low-born country girl can become a princess, a woman can declare her sovereignty, slaves can believe they deserve freedom, and Sanza even becomes a governor.
It is important to note, though, that the Heroic System of Quixote is different from the one Becker describes; it is not through society but built-in direct opposition to it! So, which side of this Satire do you fall? What is more important, the idealism and imagination for change, or the realism of seeing things as they are?