Cervantes portrays his protagonist, Don Quixote in the Prologue as a “dry and shriveled offspring… what would be born in a jail, where every discomfort has a home, and every dreadful noise is a constant companion” (41). Cervantes conceived Don Quixote during an Iron Age in which religious, intellectual and social freedoms were limited. The parallel story of the squire is also told, which tells the journey to freedom. Cervantes uses Don Quixote’s and Sanchopanza’s characters to advocate for liberty within literature and society.
Don Quixote is not an “invective” against books of chivalry, but rather an invective about the misuse of literature (46). Part I begins with Don Quixote having “stumbled upon an oddest fantasy that has ever entered the mind of a madman.” This is what moves him to become a knight errant, and go out into the world “redressing every wrong” (59). The chivalric fiction is so compelling that he is unable to escape it. This is because he is trapped by his own narrative. Don Quixote’s irreverence is so bad that he ignores not only the social constraints but also their demands. As a result, his freedom develops in the second part as his idealism starts to fade. Cervantes uses the theme of duality and conflicting authors to further establish his argument between fantasy and reality.
Don Quixote becomes more rebellious as he starts to see that his own life is being reduced to a show. He begins to show less willingness in serving others’ pleasure, such as the Dukes and the Duchesses or Don Antonios. In a letter to Sancho Pantza, he states, “When the time comes, I will obey my profession and not their pleasure.” Don Quixote retaliates in a way that is barely disguised, claiming Cervantes’s authorial control and liberty. Avellaneda has brought the Knight to Saragossa. Don Quixote states, “For that very reason, I refuse to set foot in Saragossa. Thus, the forgery committed by this new author will be revealed before the eyes of all mankind, and they will be convinced of my not being the Don Quixote who is spoken of” (953). Don Quixote declares his freedom when he refuses to be just a character created by someone else, and loses his identity. Yet, at this moment, he remains a character that is proposed by him and not a free man.
Don Quixote is freest in death when he has been released from all illusions. He is his own master and dies “even though he had been conquered, but he still conquered himself” (1038). Don Quixote’s own mind frees him, not the cleverness of the “Knights” of the White Moon. He dies “clear” and “unfettered”, rennouncing knight-errantry. Cervantes, in passing his final judgment, suggests otherwise. In the epitaph on the hero’s grave, Sansn Carasco writes:
He was a little disappointed with the prize.
It was an irritant in the eyes of men
He was fortunate to have the age he had
To live a foolish and die a scholar (1049).Don Quixote chose to do both. His fortune in the Iron Age, which constrained ideas, is that he lived and died twice. The novel transforms the knight’s imaginative freedom that “reck’d the world of small prize” into a rational and liberated reality. Cervantes holds that Don Quixote’s freedoms of the mind and imagination are valuable to readers who want to take their lives as their own. Sansn says to the knight in the first chapter of the novel, “his life belonged to those who needed his protection in their misfortunes. Don Quixote demonstrates that he owns his life, and not just as Alonso Quixano. As the knight, he is also its sole savior.
But the novel does not only tell the story of Don Quixote’s romance, which affirms freedom within a constrained environment. Cervantes’ treatment of the liberty theme has many layers, each of which supports and articulates the other. Cervantes’s satire on the genre is a clear attempt to undermine “the ill-based fabrics of these books of knighthood” (47). However, Cervantes also believes that literature can liberate the reader.
Sancho Panza is a character who finds his own freedom on the journey and makes us reflect. Cervantes calls Sancho Panza a “laboring” man as he begins his journey in Part I. . . Don Quixote forces him to be a squire, calling him a “poor wit” (95). Cervantes has Sancho sitting on “his ass as a patriarch”, even before Sancho leaves. Sancho is seated on his ass like a patriarch in Cervantes’ image.
Sancho’s refusal to continue as governor and his return to Dapple (his “partner and friend in [his] labors and struggles” (909) are both symbolical of this change. Sancho declares, “Make Way, Gentlemen, and Let Me Return to My Former Liberty.” Let me return to the life that I once had and get up from this current death. Sancho prefers to “rest in the shade of an oak in summer, and wrap himself in a tough sheepskin during winter at his own sweet will” (910). The squire understands the sweetness of self-rule. He is not following Don Quixote out of ambition. It’s because he has his “own, sweet will.” As he told the squire to the Knight of Wood, he loves him with all of his heart and cannot leave him.
Sancho has gained a new understanding of his personal liberty through the Don’s influence. He also gains a sense of the freedom of imagination that the knight displays. Sancho no longer a poor wight, his cleverness deceives him in the fulling hammers adventure and transforms an ordinary peasant woman into Lady Dulcinea. This is done by invoking his panacea of magical enchantment. Sancho says, “Why?” when Ricote challenges his claim to be Sancho’s island governor. Sancho combines both the defiance of his master and his insistent on his sovereignty in this one statement.
Sancho’s quest isn’t just about self-awareness. Cervantes is also criticizing his time for its oppressive class systems and limitations on speech. Cervantes presents, in the first part of his novella, a disturbing scene of Don Quixote whipping Andrs. The incident is unresolved but made worse because of Cervantes involvement. This dark picture shows the potential for destruction of Don Quixote’s delusion, as well as the incorrigibility and rigidity of provincial society. First, the knight’s disillusionment is resolved by his renunciation. But what about the second problem? Cervantes gives a resolution to the second problem in Part II. Don Quixote whips Sancho, in an attempt to disenchant Dulcinea. This scene has a similar possibility of violence to the one suffered by Andrs.
Sancho overcomes the Don. He cries out, “How traitor!” Sancho responds, “I do not make or mar a king. I am only defending myself. My lord is my only defender. “If you promise that I won’t be whipped and will leave me alone, I shall set you free.” (956) Cervantes uses this parable to fulfill a wish, in which the boundaries of freedom are dismantled. Cervantes, in the same way that Sancho challenges authority and asserts himself as a human being with basic rights, questions limits to freedom within society while acknowledging their existence.
Sancho’s commentary on Cervantes’s society is secondary in its focus. Sancho is told to refrain from speaking to Don Quixote as often as he does to his own master in the future. “I have never seen a squire talk to their master so much as you speak to mine” (196). Sancho knows that Don Quixote views his squire’s words as “bad language” and “proverbs”, but he also recognizes the fact that they are not any worse than “balderdash”, which his master uses to describe knight-errantry, and enchantments.
Don Quixote said, “I am familiar with you, Sancho. Therefore, I do not pay attention to what you say.”
Sancho responded, “I don’t care about yours even if I am beaten or killed for the words or intentions I have expressed or intended to express if I do not fix my own.” (693).
Sancho refuses to compromise the freedom of speech he enjoys, and this leaves Don Quixote’s reader with an appreciation for Sancho’s speech. Since the squire’s remarks persist, these exchanges are not only funny but they also demonstrate the triumph of free speech over the forces that would suppress it. Sancho gains an understanding of himself, his autonomy and the importance of freedom of speech throughout the novel. Cervantes shows Sancho’s journey of freedom, with the bittersweet desire for this to be true for all “poor people” (95).
Don Quixote is a complementary character that embodies Cervantes’s belief in the importance of freedom, in both society and literature. Ideas should have free reign. Don Quixote demonstrates that imagination and intellect are liberating when one has the fortune “to die a sage and live as a foolish” (1049). Sancho illustrates this idea further by showing that an individual can free himself. Don Quixote tells his squire that as he leaves duke’s castle, the gift of liberty is the most precious thing Heaven has ever given to mankind.
Don Quixote was attracted to the knight-errantry for its disciplined self-rule and crusade against oppression. Don Quixote is the “noble-minded” man. . . After liberating himself, he returns to his home. Sancho might even do more than Don Quixote to escape the prison that he was born into. When he returns back to La Mancha he remembers that the squire is atop his “ass like a father”(96). The image, however, is no longer a mere caricature. Instead it is a statement of the freedom that he has achieved and which is available to all.