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How Does Sancho Panza Follow Don Quixote

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Almost all who have read, or who have merely just heard of, the novel Don Quixote are aware of the comical adventures and misfortunes of Don Quixote during his attempts to pursue the life of a chivalrous night. However, fewer people are cognizant of the crucial role that Sancho Panza played in instigating and heightening the humor in Don’s quests. Time and time again readers question Sancho’s unwavering willingness to follow Don Quixote and take part in his seemingly outlandish and completely irrational adventures. Sancho began as a poor farmer. The novel refers to him as being “very honorable, if a poor man can be called honorable” and “a little short of salt in the brainpan (61). The Don promised Sancho immeasurable riches, including being …show more content…

Sancho helps to bring Don back to reality and Don teaches Sancho to broaden his imagination. While Sancho seems to believe Don’s stories, it can be correctly stated that Sancho quite often is merely playing along. Sancho is a bystander, and often times participator, in Don’s adventures. In their first adventure, the encounter of the windmills, Sancho tries to reason with Don. He repeatedly tells Don that the figures are not giants, in fact they windmills and only a person with giants on their mind would believe them to be giants. Sancho’s attempt to bring Don back to reality failed and Don attacked the windmills. In their next adventure that pertained to their encounter with the friars, Don believed the friars to be encanted. Rather than reasoning with the Don again, Sancho plays along this time and even takes part in the beating in hopes of recovering a portion of the spoils that his knight rightly won. However, Sancho also consistently tries to bring warn the Don and bring him back to reality. It is through the character of Sancho Panza that the readers can view Don from a different window. In this window, Don is a noble, just man attempting to improve the world through the means that he believes to be best appropriate. Without perspective of Sancho Panza, the Don would seem to be an irrational old man who is managing to makes everyone else’s life harder by his mischievous adventures. Sancho shines a light upon the character of Don Quixote that no other character in the novel

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