The Windmills

These thoughts are somewhat choppy and random, especially toward the end, but I'll post them anyway.

Years ago at a family reunion I mentioned to my older sister that I was teaching Don Quixote for the first time. My sister asked, "what's that book about, anyway?" Her daughter, who was listening in on the conversation, piped up and said "Oh, you know Mom. It's about that guy who fights with windmills."

My niece, who must have been about 12, had absorbed the key image of Don Quixote. If you know nothing at all about Don Quixote, you at least know about the windmills. Google Don Quixote and the first thing that pops up is windmills. I have a theory about well-intentioned readers who dutifully begin reading Don Quixote. Like my niece, they know it has something to do with windmills. And like Mark Twain, they know it is a classic that has been much-praised and therefore ought to be read.

So like Don Quixote they sally forth on the adventure of reading and manage to get all the way to Chapter 8, where they encounter this: http://www.online-literature.com/cervantes/don_quixote/12/

At this point they came in sight of thirty forty windmills that there are on plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, "Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those thou seest there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."
"Look, your worship," said Sancho; "what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."

So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the cries his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they were windmills and not giants he was going to attack. He, however, was so positive they were giants that he neither heard the cries of Sancho, nor perceived, near as he was, what they were, but made at them shouting, "Fly not, cowards and vile beings, for a single knight attacks you."

A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to move, seeing which Don Quixote exclaimed, "Though ye flourish more arms than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with me."

So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, imploring her to support him in such a peril, with lance in rest and covered by his buckler, he charged at Rocinante's fullest gallop and fell upon the first mill that stood in front of him; but as he drove his lance-point into the sail the wind whirled it round with such force that it shivered the lance to pieces, sweeping with it horse and rider, who went rolling over on the plain, in a sorry condition. Sancho hastened to his assistance as fast as his ass could go, and when he came up found him unable to move, with such a shock had Rocinante fallen with him.

"God bless me!" said Sancho, "did I not tell your worship to mind what you were about, for they were only windmills? and no one could have made any mistake about it but one who had something of the same kind in his head."

"Hush, friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "the fortunes of war more than any other are liable to frequent fluctuations; and moreover I think, and it is the truth, that that same sage Friston who carried off my study and books, has turned these giants into mills in order to rob me of the glory of vanquishing them, such is the enmity he bears me; but in the end his wicked arts will avail but little against my good sword."

And that is it. No more fighting against windmills will occur for the rest of the novel, nor are they even mentioned again, except in a sort "I told you so" way. My personal theory is that by the time most well-intentioned readers get to this point the've found the novel to be not an easy read. They get to the windmills and find it somewhat anticlimactic. Their enthusiasm begins to flag and not only do they not finish the novel, they most likely do not make it through Chapter 9, which is a shame, because that's where things start to get funky.

So if the book is not really about a guy who fights windmills, why is that particular image the one most associated with Don Quixote? I don't know. But it is emblematic of many of the tensions inherent in the book. For those inclined to see the novel as a witness to social change, then Don Quixote is the perfect emblem of a man who finds himself becoming progressively alienated. He yearns to recreate an idealized past in the face of an impersonal present.

Sancho and Don Quixote
The windmill episode may be anticlimaticic, but should not be taken as unimportant. There is evidence within the book itself that many readers at the time of Cervantes considered it their favorite episode. Indeed, it is with the windmill episode that certain tensions get crystalized that will mark the rest of volume one. Among these are the tension between past and present, beween fantasy and reality, between fact and fiction. These tensions get personified in the persons of Don Quixote and Sancho, and in fact we could add a few more: book wisdom/popular wisdom; carnavalesque inversion of and subversion of social mores; sanity/madness.

In the windmill episode Don Quixote has his first adventure accompanied by Sancho Panza. Sancho is more connected to the realities of life (especially economic). He lives in the world, not in the clouds. He is also street smart. But he is not astute enough to see through DQ's promises to him.

The very fact that these two have been thrown together provides ample ground for them to bicker. Sancho's job at the beginning seems to be one of undermining DQ at every turn. When DQ gives a high sounding speech about how knights errant are accustomed to sleep in the open and go a month without food, Sancho all but rub his face in the fact that DQ can pass vigil all he wants, but SP is going to eat.