People wander through life today and often miss the wonder of all that surrounds them. The modern world of science and technology reduces the focus to pushing buttons and entering data into searches that produce easy answers generated from a short search; gone is the wandering that leads to discovery. The possibilities of becoming are lost in the safety of clear conformity. The majority do not dare to wander because of lost time, reputation or certainty. Most are far too worried about appearing foolish or putting time into something that will not have quick results. Maybe that is part of the reason that the fool of Miguel De Cervantes still touches something in the heart of readers. Don Quixote tells his neighbor farmer Pedro Alonso, “I know
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Yet the lost years help transform him from being a young fool into becoming a knight of King Arthur. His uncle, a priest, tells him: “If your heart is sufficiently willing, it’s not too late; return to grace” (Troyes 1527). There is still hope for willing hearts and wiser minds to turn, change and live. Dante the Pilgrim stands in Purgatory and describes the empty shades, who realize he truly lives: “Those souls who noticed that my body breathed, and realized that I was still alive, in their amazement turned a deathly pale” (Alighieri 1725). In this place live people who are empty shadows, pale in color and only partly alive. The readers of Cervantes, Troyes and Alighieri still have stories with lines still to be written. Antonio Molina encourages modern readers to take on a new name as Alonso Quijano did, the modern reader must be both “author and master of his own story” (Molina 381). The foolish journey of the knight attracts the reader to better ideas that seem lost in the past and this modern day focus on being what society says a person should be, keeps most from ever going on an adventure in the first place. The descent of Dante and the experience with the mysterious grail of Chrétien De Troyes is nothing more than classic writings of an age …show more content…
The classic stories are not just an escape into fantasy, but identification with the situation of the protagonist. When the character overcomes the trial, battle or struggle; real life struggles seem to contain more hope. The windmills that Don Quixote fights are the giants of fear, labels and inexperience. His story is the story of the wounded reader who doubts and feels stupid, foolish and defeated, but according to Robert Bayliss: “Don Quixote has survived independently of Cervantes and has been reenlisted through the centuries, each time to fight new and very different battles” (Bayliss 383). Every reader can relate to not knowing what problem or opportunity is here right now, Perceval fails to ask the Fisher King what the bleeding spear and grail were, his innocent mistake results in the king not being healed and misery to come for the knight. His cousin tells him: “How much good you’d have done! Believe me, miseries will come” (Troyes 1500). Perceval’s problems do increase and misery does come, but he does eventually become the knight he hopes to be. What makes a person a hero, according to Antonio Munoz Molina, is not how the person is at the start of the epic, but what the person becomes in the process. Don Quixote should be considered the first modern hero of fiction because of this difference in becoming (Molina 373). In the traditional epic, the hero simply does his or her duty: “Achilles
Yet the lost years help transform him from being a young fool into becoming a knight of King Arthur. His uncle, a priest, tells him: “If your heart is sufficiently willing, it’s not too late; return to grace” (Troyes 1527). There is still hope for willing hearts and wiser minds to turn, change and live. Dante the Pilgrim stands in Purgatory and describes the empty shades, who realize he truly lives: “Those souls who noticed that my body breathed, and realized that I was still alive, in their amazement turned a deathly pale” (Alighieri 1725). In this place live people who are empty shadows, pale in color and only partly alive. The readers of Cervantes, Troyes and Alighieri still have stories with lines still to be written. Antonio Molina encourages modern readers to take on a new name as Alonso Quijano did, the modern reader must be both “author and master of his own story” (Molina 381). The foolish journey of the knight attracts the reader to better ideas that seem lost in the past and this modern day focus on being what society says a person should be, keeps most from ever going on an adventure in the first place. The descent of Dante and the experience with the mysterious grail of Chrétien De Troyes is nothing more than classic writings of an age …show more content…
The classic stories are not just an escape into fantasy, but identification with the situation of the protagonist. When the character overcomes the trial, battle or struggle; real life struggles seem to contain more hope. The windmills that Don Quixote fights are the giants of fear, labels and inexperience. His story is the story of the wounded reader who doubts and feels stupid, foolish and defeated, but according to Robert Bayliss: “Don Quixote has survived independently of Cervantes and has been reenlisted through the centuries, each time to fight new and very different battles” (Bayliss 383). Every reader can relate to not knowing what problem or opportunity is here right now, Perceval fails to ask the Fisher King what the bleeding spear and grail were, his innocent mistake results in the king not being healed and misery to come for the knight. His cousin tells him: “How much good you’d have done! Believe me, miseries will come” (Troyes 1500). Perceval’s problems do increase and misery does come, but he does eventually become the knight he hopes to be. What makes a person a hero, according to Antonio Munoz Molina, is not how the person is at the start of the epic, but what the person becomes in the process. Don Quixote should be considered the first modern hero of fiction because of this difference in becoming (Molina 373). In the traditional epic, the hero simply does his or her duty: “Achilles