Comparisons of Sancho and Don Quixote

Kayla S. 

March 24, 2010 

Don Quixote 

Assignment 1 

      Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee. Besides their collective abundance of testosterone, fondness for peculiar animals, and attraction to dodgy happenstances, what else do these prodigious individuals have in common? As it happens, they all are prime examples of countless authors’ affinity for a plot centering on a protagonist and his trusty sidekick. Since Aaron assisted Moses in beseeching Pharaoh to free the Israelites, the “right-hand” man has become a staple of legend and literature. However, whether it be due to forgetfulness, dislike, or plain ignorance, few bibliophiles remember Don Quixote and the ever-patient Sancho Panza when listing noteworthy heroes and their assistants. Unfortunately, in doing so they miss out on important lessons in loyalty, and pass by incalculable opportunities to burst their spleens with laughter at Quixote and Panza’s crazy antics.

      While maintaining the health of one’s spleen is essential, it is perhaps equally as important to examine the relationship between Quixote and Panza. Don Quixote, whose brain is impaired due to severe saturation with chivalric novels, has elected to explore the countryside as a self-initiated knight-errant. Thus he decides he needs a squire in order to be a proper knight. He chooses Sancho Panza, a local peasant who knows no more about knight-errantry than he does about dealing with the mentally compromised. Throughout their time together, the relationship between knight and squire evolves drastically.

      Sancho begins journeying with his master under the unfortunate impression that Quixote is sane. For example when they set off for their first adventure together, Quixote promises the trustingly gullible Sancho, “I shall win a kingdom that has others allied to it, and that would be perfect for my crowning you king of one of them” (Cervantes 57). Sancho’s dreams are shattered during the escapade at the windmills when he realizes the aspirations of his master are naught but ash. In order to prevent Don Quixote from maiming himself permanently, Sancho must slowly change from trusting servant to wary babysitter. Toward the beginning of the saga, Quixote offers Sancho a supposed healing potion for bruises; Sancho takes it willingly, at much detriment to his gastrointestinal tract. After his disillusionment concerning Quixote’s mental capacity, Sancho is offered some more of the drink at a later time. He bitingly replies, “Do you want me to finish vomiting up whatever guts I have left?…You can keep your potion or send it to the devil; just leave me alone” (Cervantes 123).

      Clearly, the squire no longer trusts in his knight; however, he maintains his position as loyal sidekick to Quixote throughout the rest of the book. After his initial misunderstandings Sancho is unperturbed by Quixote’s thoughtless exploits and uses a level head to keep his master alive during his unusual escapades. Ergo, Panza makes himself absolutely essential to the tale, and to Quixote himself. If Man Friday had taken issue with conversing with parrots, he would never have built a relationship with Crusoe. If Dr. Watson had disliked perpetual inferiority, Sherlock Holmes might not have been able to incarcerate so many swarthy miscreants. If Sam Gamgee had found fault with walking hundreds of miles in his bare feet while lugging a knapsack full of spices and elvish comestibles, Frodo might have failed his mission and destroyed Middle Earth. And if Sancho Panza had not forgiven Quixote his idiosyncratic neuroses, The Knight of the Sorrowful Face might have ended his days wandering a hillside naked with a washbasin on his head.

 Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

 Tyler H.

In Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, Don Quixote is the peerless knight of La Mancha, traipsing about the countryside of Spain performing mighty feats of valor - flaxing fearsome foes, enthusiastically enlightening elementaries in the enigmas of 'errantry, and delivering damsels in distress. With him he has brought his carefully contrived helmet, his trusty lance and sword, a sort of body armor, and his ever-faithful stallion Rocinante. After his first sally ended in none too few broken ribs, he convalesced in his home for a few weeks. When he was ready to venture forth again, he realized that he did not have a squire, an indispensable increase to his impedimenta. After mulling his problem over for a while, he set his sights on Sancho Panza, a simple farmer of La Mancha, who was a good man "but without much in the way of brains". Quixote managed to convince this Panza that he was a magnificent knight-errant who was about to win a kingdom, but needed a squire, whom he would reward with an island to govern. Sancho naively fell for this, and soon joined forces with the eager knight-errant.

Riding haphazardly across the woodlands and through the glades of Spain, the two of them talked with each other as friends and neighbors would, and enjoyed many a hearty meal together. As time went on, though, Sancho became ever more familiar with the knight, and let his tongue fly a little too freely for Don Quixote's tastes. The Don began to restrain the relationship between them, and eventually forbid Sancho from speaking unless spoken to, since no good squire in the famous books of knight-errantry ever spoke to his master. Sancho complied, although it was much to his dislike, until they were going through a very empty and lonely part of the country, and he asked his master to allow him to speak. Quixote acquiesced, and the two resumed their conversations. However, at one point the conversation turned to Don Quixote's nonpareil lady, Dulcinea of Toboso. Sancho knew her for what she really was, a strapping farm girl, and began to crack some jests about her, but Don Quixote silenced (and flattened) him with a couple hard blows to the back with his lance. Don Quixote would not take any nonsense about his lady from his mere servant.

In conclusion, what was the nature of the relationship between the two, and how did it progress? It began as just a common friendship between two adventurers; Don Quixote, however, tried to force it to conform to his convoluted theories of what the relationships between knight-errants and their squires should be – subservience from the squire, loftiness on the part of the knight, and no words between the two – but he did not succeed. Sancho Panza would always remain, through thick and through thin, a loyal friend.