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Don Quixote: The Trickster And The Fool

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Recommended: Five characteristics of tricksters in literature

Matthew Johnson
Professor Farrah Cato
World Lit 2110
December 1, 2017
The Trickster and the Fool There are many characters from stories and poems that I have read that push boundaries. Some of these characters rarely seem aware that almost any boundaries exist. The main character of Miguel de Cervantes’ best-known work, Don Quixote, is among those characters. He constantly crosses the lines between right and wrong, sometimes in ways that disturb and frighten everyone around him. This definitely places him in the category of “trickster”, as explained by Lewis Hyde. Although Don Quixote may not be one to try and cross boundaries, he is still found on the lines between knowledge and insanity, and reality and imagination. Don Quixote’s determination to follow …show more content…

One way that Hyde defines a trickster is as a character whose “appetites drive their wanderings”. This interpretation of Don Quixote is possibly the best. Quixote wants to pursue his dream of having an ideal, and does not care about anything or anyone around him as he tries to do so. The amount of trouble he causes for everyone around him, though, overrules the sentiment that he portrays. Trickster stories and characters are often used to teach moral lessons, with the characters’ actions backfiring on them. For Quixote’s case, thinking before you act is definitely a lesson that was supposed to be taught. He starts fights for no good reason. One good example of this was when he attacks a group of travelers because he believed that they were kidnapping a princess. His lack of being able to distinguish real enemies from imagined ones is what had created the problem. When he’s

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Tricksters, much like wise old men, dragons, and knights are common story characters; however, characters like tricksters are not just for story books or tales, they are also widely found in religious writings. Gods like Loki in the Norse mythology, or Set in the Egyptian mythology used trickery or underhanded tactics to gain power or cause damage in their own stories. Hunahpu and Xbalanque are described as tricksters in the story, in one literal sense, when Seven Macaw is talking about them, on page 2497 Macaw refers to them as tricksters. Aside from this, the tactics the boys use also suggest that they are trickster archetypal characters. The two examples that best show this are how Hunahpu attacks Macaw with a blow-dart when he is eating,

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