Man of La Mancha

Content Warning: The play romanticizes mental health conditions and uses terminology that reinforces the stigma around them.

“The law says treat everyone equally. We only obeyed the law!”

Cervantes appeals to principle to justify his defiance of the Inquisition that has led to his imprisonment. This simultaneously establishes him as an idealist willing to suffer for his principles and suggests that allowing oppression—as represented by the Inquisition—is the alternative to idealism. This introduces The Conflict Between Idealism and Realism.

“And all he reads oppresses him…fills him with indignation at man’s murderous ways toward man. He broods…and broods…and broods—and finally from so much brooding his brains dry up! He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity and conceives the strangest project ever imagined…to become a knight-errant and sally forth into the world to right all wrongs. No longer shall he be plain Alonso Quijana…but a dauntless knight known as Don Quixote de La Mancha!”

Cervantes’s origin story for Don Quixote introduces the idea of “insanity” using comedic elements, such as the notion of a brain drying up. He also carefully links this supposed insanity with a very understandable desire to oppose evil. This sets up the various themes of the musical and prepares him to push back against the idea that fighting for principles is a delusional endeavor, thereby challenging Perceptions of Mental Health.

“SANCHO. But it’s peculiar—to me this great highway to glory looks exactly like the road to El Toboso where you can buy chickens cheap.

DON QUIXOTE. Like beauty, my friend, ‘tis all in the eyes of the beholder. Only wait and thou shalt see amazing sights.”

This early exchange between knight and squire is an excellent indirect characterization of both men. Sancho is practical and curious, but willing to defer to his friend. Don Quixote is grandiose and uses archaic language like “thou” as part of his chivalric fantasy. His reference to the “eyes of the beholder” also foreshadows how people will gradually come to see the beauty of his dream.