Paralleling Reality: The Storytelling Tapestry of Don Quixote

Date

2009-01

Authors

Gordyn, Edgar

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Abstract

The curious phenomenon of storytelling is unique to human beings, and has for millennia been a vital vein for the development of human civilization. Epic poems glorify the deeds of heroes, stories embody religious beliefs, and our world generally becomes more sensible through stories, both factual and fictional. Miguel Cervantes’ character, the story-obsessed Don Quixote, represents our collective fascination with stories. Cervantes, in his novel Don Quixote, employs the storytelling tradition to make Quixote’s worlds—both that of his imagination and that in which Quixote lives—more ingenious and sensible. Cervantes’ numerous themes seem at first as disconnected and disorganized as Quixote’s thinking. However, utilizing the storytelling tradition within his novel, Cervantes coheres his disparate themes into a harmonious whole. This approach mirrors our general storytelling tradition that makes our world—historical and modern —more sensible, however random some of its events seem. By focusing on Part I of Don Quixote, my essay will analyze not only Cervantes’ use of stories within stories, but also his layered narrative structure, both of which devices make the novel Don Quixote a microcosm of the storytelling tradition that is crucial to our civilization’s development.

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Keywords

Quixote, Cervantes, story, storytelling, narrative, narrators, moral agency, human experience, reality, empathy

Citation

Gordyn, E. (2009). Paralleling reality: The storytelling tapestry of Don Quixote. Paper presented at the Honors College Undergraduate Research Conference, San Marcos, TX.

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