How can Quixote understand the subtleties of the barber's story which, according to him, was "so pat to the point" if he were not conscientious and sharp-minded? We cannot simply disregard his intellect and view him as a man unaware of his actions. In response to the barber's story, Quixote immediately replies indignantly, " 'So that, Master Barber…is the story which came so pat to the point that you had to tell it? O, Master Shaver, how blind is the man who cannot see through a hair-sieve' " (477). And in an effort to bring him back to reality, the barber proceeds to recount to Quixote a tale concerning a man who often spoke like an individual of great intelligence but, at times, broke into wild and inane talk, believing himself to be Neptune. Upon his arrival back home, he is greeted by his niece, housekeeper, and barber who still regard him as a lunatic. In fact, it is clearly shown at the start of Part Two that Quixote does indeed understand subtlety and the full implications of his actions. Faulty reasoning like this underestimates Quixote's ability to comprehend subtleties, which ultimately results in a severe misconception of the character. Regarding these types of scenes, it is overly presumptuous to associate Quixote's resilience to the modern world with an inability to understand surrounding circumstances. Often, when other characters declare to Quixote that they believe he is completely insane, he merely ignores these statements and continues to fight in the name of his Lady Dulcinea. World, it is essential to establish the character's intellect, a much-debated topic. In order to address the question of whether Quixote is aware of the modern However, in the novel's second half, the reader can begin to see the depth of Quixote's capacity to rationalize and realize that his choice to play the role of a knight is a result of his thorough understanding of the modern world and his ultimate rejection of it. Unfortunately, Quixote's aggressive and peculiar approach at bringing back this era is often misinterpreted as madness. Realizing that his world no longer espouses the valiant tenets of the chivalric era, Quixote sets out to bring back these ideals by living the life of a typical knight he feels as though simply preaching to others about this idyllic time period is insufficient. In the first half of this novel, we see brief glimpses of his sophisticated reasoning and philosophizing, yet the full extent of Don Quixote's mental sanity and understanding of the modern world becomes strikingly apparent in the latter half of the text. However, amidst the ridiculous nature of his various adventures, there is an underlying indication that Don Quixote possesses an outstanding capacity for intellectual and rational thought. In Part One of Cervantes' Don Quixote, our hero appears to be more ofīumbling, reckless idiot than the gallant knight errant he professes to be.
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