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Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Alonso Quixano, a less-than-affluent man of fifty, "lean bodied" and "thin faced, lives modestly in the Spanish

country village of La Mancha with his niece, Antonia, and a crany housemaid! ractical in most things,

compassionate to his social peers, the local clergy, and the servant classes, Quixano is respectful toward the

ruling classes, whom he un#uestioningly accepts as his superiors! $e is driven neither by ambition for wealth

and position nor bitterness at his genteel poverty!

%ell read and thoughtful, Quixano&s most pri'ed possessions are his boos! (rom his readings and studies, he

 becomes by degrees interested, then obsessed, with the codes, deeds, and tales of chivalry ) of nights errant

on some courtly and ideali'ed mission! As his appetite for the lore of chivalry increases, Quixano begins selling

off acres of his farmlands, using the funds to buy more boos, and increasingly throwing himself into his

studies! "(rom little sleep and too much reading his brain dried up and he lost his wits! $e had a fancy ! ! ! to

turn his passion night errant and travel through the world with horse and armor in search of adventures" with

the purpose of "redressing all manner of wrongs!"

At length, he is galvani'ed into action by his passion for the chivalric code! *utfitting himself with some old

rusty armor, Quixano enlists his spavined hac horse to go forth in search of nightly adventures! $opeful of 

finding a proper noble to dub him, Quixano finally is licensed in his venture by an inneeper who believes him

to be a lord of a manor! +ow Quixano is "on Quixote de La Mancha" the tired hac and dray horse becomes

elevated to ".osinante!"

All the new night needs now in order to venture forth is a lady to whose service he is sworn and a servant or 

 page! (or the former, he chooses ulcinea del /obosa, named after Aldon'a Loren'o, a farm girl whom he had

 been taen with at one time!

After three days on the road, Quixote encounters a group of traveling salesmen whom he attacs after they

refuse to acnowledge ulcinea&s great beauty! $e is badly beaten by the servant of the salesman and forced to

accept the help of a neighbor, who brings him home on the bac of a doney!

%hile he is recovering, Quixote is forced to watch as his houseeeper, a barber, and a priest burn all his boos

on chivalry in an attempt to persuade him to give up his improbable #uest! 0ut this only fuels Quixote&s

determination! $e persuades Sancho an'a, a plump, simple-minded-but-opportunistic laborer, to serve as his

 page, by playing on his ambitions! on Quixote promises Sancho his own island to govern, for surely such a

splendid night as he is sure to become will soon tae many spoils!

And so this pair set forth, Quixote on his spavined old horse, an'a mounted on apple, his mule! /heir second

adventure lasts for three wees and is comprised of a series of events that comprise the balance of 0oo *ne!

Among other things, Quixote battles windmills, thining them to be giants! At an inn, which he mistaes for acastle, Quixote is visited in bed by a maid, who causes a great uproar when she discovers she has come to the

wrong room! .efusing to pay the bill and accusing the inneeper of being inhospitable, Quixote is rousted, only

to fall promptly into another misadventure with a religious procession, and yet other ironic and error-prone

encounters with locals!

1nterspersed among these adventures are a series of stories and moral tales, illustrating the pastoral storytelling

tradition in Spain! As well, there are two long, learned dis#uisitions, delivered by Quixote! /he first is a

description of the 2olden Age of mythology, told during a supper shared with some unlettered goatherds who

don&t understand a word he says! Later on, Quixote addresses a company during dinner at an inn in a debate

about whether the career of arms is superior to that of letters, or vice versa!

/hroughout the adventures it becomes clear that Quixote, for all his seeming madness, is a mild-mannered,

empathetic man, genuine in his concern for chivalric ideals! Although he has agendas of his own, Sancho an'a

has come to believe in and show loyalty to his new master! 0ut in spite of all his good intentions, Quixote&s

#uest leads him to be returned home, imprisoned in a cage on an ox-cart by his village priest and barber for on

Quixote&s own good!

ublished in a separate volume, 0oo /wo of on Quixote&s adventures contains a uni#ue feature! Shortly after 

0oo *ne was published and 3ervantes was at wor on 0oo /wo, he got word of the appearance of a pirated

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0oo /wo in which the author, a writer named Avellaneda, presumed to write further adventures of the night,

going so far as to renounce his service to ulcinea! 3ervantes was at 3hapter 45 in 0oo /wo, having Quixote

and an'a headed to a 6ousting tournament in Saragossa! +ow, angered by the pirated version, 3ervantes sets

forth in revenge by having Quixote and an'a eating dinner at an inn and "overhearing" tal of the Avellaneda

version! /he night and s#uire promptly set forth to 0arcelona, home of on Alvaro /arfe, a character from the

Avellaneda boo! %hen they arrive in 0arcelona, they idnap the Avellaneda character!

0oo /wo also introduces the character of Samson 3arrasco, a young man from on Quixote&s village! A recentgraduate of Salamanca 7niversity, 3arrasco taes on the earlier roles of the priest and the barber in attempting

to rescue and eep on Quixote away from danger, but on Quixote is not interested in being "rescued!" $e is

determined to go to /obosa to pay his respects to ulcinea! /hey encounter three peasant girls and by some

deception, Sancho hopes that his master will accept one of these as being ulcinea! %hen events or appearances

run counter to his expectations, on Quixote tends to believe that enchanters have wored their mischief! 1n this

instance, he believes enchanters have made ulcinea loo lie an ugly peasant girl!

on Quixote unexpectedly wins a battle with a night 8/he 9night of the Mirrors:, who turns out to be none

other than Samson 3arrasco in disguise! Samson had hoped to get the on bac home to safety by disguising

himself as a rival night! /he plan bacfires! Shortly afterwards, on Quixote and Sancho an'a meet the"9night in the 2reen /opcoat," which includes the episode of the lion with whom the on wants to do battle!

/he ma6or portion of this section is devoted to an unnamed due and duchess who, with their retainers, play a

series of prans ) in the form of burles#ue pageants ) on Quixote! /hey also cause in6ury to both the night

and his s#uire! Another vital element is the appointment of Sancho an'a as governor of an island ) another 

elaborate pran that ends with an'a renouncing the life of a feudal governor and showing a deep layer of 

loyalty to Quixote!

*nce again Samson 3arran'o appears, this time at the beach in 0arcelona where, in the guise of /he 9night of 

the %hite Moon, he challenges on Quixote to battle! *f course, Quixote accepts the challenge and, in the

 presence of the viceroy and a distinguished company, is roundly defeated! A condition of Quixote&s defeat is that

he abandon night errantry for the rest of his life!

1n the remaining chapters, on Quixote and Sancho an'a return to La Mancha, but not before they experience

an additional stay with the ue and uchess and sundry other humiliating experiences suffered by the ex-

night!

%hen they arrive home, on Quixote, apparently broen in spirit, is put to bed! After a long sleep, he declares

his name to be Alonso Quixano once more and appears to have regained his reason! Shortly after he denounces

chivalry and nighthood, he dies among the lamentation of friends!

Macbeth by William Shakespear

/he play begins with the brief appearance of a trio of witches and then moves to a military camp, where the

Scottish 9ing uncan hears the news that his generals, Macbeth and 0an#uo, have defeated two separate

invading armies)one from 1reland, led by the rebel Macdonwald, and one from +orway! (ollowing their 

 pitched battle with these enemy forces, Macbeth and 0an#uo encounter the witches as they cross a moor! /he

witches prophesy that Macbeth will be made thane 8a ran of Scottish nobility: of 3awdor and eventually 9ing

of Scotland! /hey also prophesy that Macbeth;s companion, 0an#uo, will beget a line of Scottish ings,

although 0an#uo will never be ing himself! /he witches vanish, and Macbeth and 0an#uo treat their 

 prophecies septically until some of 9ing uncan;s men come to than the two generals for their victories in battle and to tell Macbeth that he has indeed been named thane of 3awdor! /he previous thane betrayed

Scotland by fighting for the +orwegians and uncan has condemned him to death! Macbeth is intrigued by the

 possibility that the remainder of the witches; prophecy)that he will be crowned ing)might be true, but he is

uncertain what to expect! $e visits with 9ing uncan, and they plan to dine together at 1nverness, Macbeth;s

castle, that night! Macbeth writes ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her all that has happened!

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Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband;s uncertainty! She desires the ingship for him and wants him to

murder uncan in order to obtain it! %hen Macbeth arrives at 1nverness, she overrides all of her husband;s

ob6ections and persuades him to ill the ing that very night! $e and Lady Macbeth plan to get uncan;s two

chamberlains drun so they will blac out the next morning they will blame the murder on the chamberlains,

who will be defenseless, as they will remember nothing! %hile uncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his

doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a vision of a bloody dagger! %hen uncan;s death is

discovered the next morning, Macbeth ills the chamberlains)ostensibly out of rage at their crime)and easily

assumes the ingship! uncan;s sons Malcolm and onalbain flee to