Tracy Wagner
This paper will focus on the types of humor used and the role humor plays in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Specifically, it will analyze Cervantes’ use of parody, satire, irony and slapstick. Cervantes had a firm grasp on what makes people laugh and why. He was influenced by several different factors while writing Don Quixote which include events in his own life, chivalric novels, and the traditions of Carnival. An analysis of Don Quixote and relevant opinions and theories will demonstrate these points.
Don Quixote has received much praise since Cervantes wrote it nearly 400 years ago. This novel, which has been translated into over 60 languages, has been a best seller since its debut and is said to be the second best selling book in history. Professor Carroll B. Johnson notes that “professionals of literature, and that includes both writers and critics, consider Don Quixote at the center of the history of the novel” (19). Professor Johnson notes, in fact, that the whole history of the novel can be considered “a variation on the theme of Don Quixote” (qtd. in Johnson 19). It has been called a tale of moral excellence in a depraved world, a story of one man’s struggle against the human condition, as well as a cautionary tale of idealism versus realism. The most striking feature of the story, however, is arguably its humor. It is, simply, a very funny book. It is not surprising that Miguel Cervantes is recognized as a great humorist throughout the world.
Critical praise for the book’s humor has been near universal. For instance, Thomas Roscoe, a 19th century English writer said that “no work in any language ever exhibited a more delicate or a more lively satire, combined with a richer vein of invention, and wrought with happier success” (Ed. Person 134). The American poet and essayist James Russell Lowell declared that he could “think of no other book so thoroughly good natured and good humored” (Ed. Person 137). Lowell considered Don Quixote “the most perfect character ever drawn” (59). Author Samuel Putnam notes that Sancho Panza has been said to be “the most humorous creation in the whole range of fiction” (qtd. in Putnam 24), and that Don Quixote is the first comedy that bases its humor on “the incongruous clash of reality and appearance” (32). Even King Phillip III of Spain, upon spying a young man walking down the street roaring with laughter, was moved to remark, “Either that young man has taken leave of his senses, or he is reading Don Quixote” (qtd. in Johnson 25).
What is known about the man who created this literary masterpiece? Miguel de Cervantes was born in 1547 and died in 1615. His early adulthood was filled with excitement and danger. He fought with the Spanish navy to defeat the Turks in 1571 and sustained a grievous injury that rendered his left hand useless for the rest of his life. In 1575 while on a ship bound for Spain, he and a brother were kidnapped and sold into slavery in Algiers. Several daring escape attempts failed, and he was eventually ransomed in 1580.
Later on, in stark contrast, Cervantes’ life was ordinary, even dull. He was a chronic debtor employed in a series of tedious jobs. Inept bookkeeping landed him in trouble with his employers; he even spent some time in jail for inconsistencies in his work. His attempts at writing drama were equally disastrous. By the time he finally met success with Don Quixote, he was already well into middle age.
Cervantes obviously had some affinity for his befuddled knight. The sequence of life events is reversed, however, between creator and character. Don Quixote’s life was quiet and boring until middle age, when he undertook his new calling and found himself constantly enmeshed in harrowing predicaments. Both writer and character were unsuccessful in their respective endeavors, with the knight faring even worse than Cervantes. Don Quixote’s attempts to right wrongs and correct abuses were not merely unsuccessful, they were unmitigated catastrophes.
What makes Don Quixote such a funny book? Much of the humor in the novel comes from Don Quixote’s madness and his inability to recognize the truth as it really is. Reality is dull; Don Quixote’s way of seeing the world, however misguided, is more exciting than the truth. When faced with a phenomenon he cannot explain, like the windmills-turned-giants-turned-windmills-again, he resorts to blaming the transformation on enchanters (Cervantes 69). These enchanters, who also stole all of his beloved books, constantly torment him and attempt to thwart him in his efforts to dispense justice.
According to Ian Watt, these mischievous enchanters are among the “various devious strategies whereby the hero tries to protect his delusions from the realities that would expose them” (73). Don Quixote believes what he wants to believe, regardless of the physical evidence that is right in front of him. Don Quixote is so deeply out of touch with reality in matters of chivalry and so involved in his own fantasy world, he is spared the embarrassment of knowing that people are laughing at him and see him as a fool(65).
There is also powerful humor in the witty repartee that Sancho and Don Quixote engage in with each other and people they encounter. When Sancho promises to deliver a letter to Dulcinea and beat an answer out of her if necessary, Don Quixote notes “as far as I can see, you are no saner than I am” (213). Sancho desires to know why Don Quixote has gone mad. Other knights had been provoked into madness by outside forces. For what reason has Don Quixote turned mad? Don Quixote replies that “a knight errant who turns mad for a reason deserves neither merit nor thanks. The thing is to do it without cause…” (203). Don Quixote admits to being mad, but he becomes enraged if anyone else suggests that he is mad.
Sancho tires of Don Quixote’s insistence that the barber’s basin is really the famous helmet of Malandrino and exclaims, “a man who persists in saying a thing like that must be cracked in the brain.” Don Quixote replies, “you have less brains than any squire has or ever had in the whole world” and goes on to say that Sancho should know by now that they are being followed by enchanters (Cervantes 204). In “Sancho’s Misadventures,” Sancho has fallen into a hole, and Don Quixote happens to ride by and hear Sancho call for help. They had been separated for a while, and Don Quixote feared that Sancho was dead and his soul was calling from purgatory. Sancho reassures his master that “I’ve never been dead in all the days of my life” (826). When Sancho, as governor, speaks to a constituent whose wife is dead, he dryly observes, “if your wife hadn’t died, or been killed, you wouldn’t be a widower now” (770). In spite of their mutual bantering,insulting, teasing, and threatening, however, their bond stays strong.
Cervantes uses many humorous devices in Don Quixote with tremendous success.Among these devices is parody, which mocks a style of work for comedic purposes. Parody is an absurd imitation of a school of writing, exposing the over-reliance on tired precepts and the literary weaknesses of the authors. However, to write a parody, the author must have a true appreciation of the original work that he is mocking.
Examples of parody abound in Don Quixote, starting with Cervantes’ prologue. In it, he laments the fact that he is not acquainted with dukes and ladies who could write introductory sonnets for him; he is unfamiliar with the Latin phrases that he longs to use in order to sound more scholarly; he is not well acquainted enough with Holy Scripture to quote it (26-27). In this manner, he parodies the bombastic rhetoric of his compatriot and rival, the poet Lope de Vega, who was courted by the rich and famous and known for his penchant for self-glorification (Laskier Martin 130).
Cervantes parodies the master-servant relationship between Don Quixote and Sancho. Sancho is not the typical, humble servant who acquiesces to all of his master’s needs. He is outspoken, argumentative, verbally abuses Don Quixote, and complains constantly.
Don Quixote’s speech also falls victim of Cervantes’ sense of the ridiculous. In contrast to the eloquent speeches used to compelling effect in the chivalric novels, Don Quixote is sometimes so verbose that people cannot understand what he is saying.
Cervantes in the novel parodies the notion that education equals wisdom. When Don Quixote attacks the windmills because he thinks they are giants, Sancho warns him to be careful, telling him that they are, in fact, windmills. Don Quixote haughtily replies that Sancho has no experience with adventure and therefore does not know what he is talking about (Cervantes 68). Don Quixote feels he is learned in the ways of adventure because he has read about such things in the chivalric novels of which he is so fond. He fails to recognize that one cannot live vicariously through books; one must live through an experience in order to know the truth about it.
The devices of irony and satire are closely related and are prominent in Don Quixote as well. In satire, human vice and folly are censored by means of derision. This is usually meant to bring about a social improvement. In the opinions of some critics, the entire story of Don Quixote is principally a satire aiming to expose the folly of chivalric novels. However, Cervantes himself said he did not use satire, seeing it as cruel and “unworthy of a generous heart” (qtd. in Bell 185).
Irony as a literary device means that the intended meaning is the opposite of what is expressed. There is a noticeable incongruity between what is expected and the actual result. The object of irony need not always be a person. For instance, irony can also target attitudes, beliefs, or social customs. Don Quixote is an example of the ironic victim. In this role, Don Quixote is unaware that the world is not really how he sees it.
According to John J. Allen, there are three requirements for the role of the ironic victim. The first requirement is that there are two levels to the situation – the victim’s view and the observer’s view. Secondly, there is a contradiction between what the victim thinks and what the observer knows. Thirdly, the victim is not aware of the observer’s reality based point of view (59-60). There are many kinds of ironical situations in Don Quixote.
The irony starts immediately with the narrator, who insists that this is a true story, but does not even know the hero’s real name (Cervantes 31). In another episode, Don Quixote accepts without question the innkeeper’s assertion that he was also a knight-adventurer at one time in his life. The innkeeper rattles off places he has been to and things he has done, seducing women and cheating juveniles among them (41-42). The innkeeper’s actions are the antithesis of the chivalric code, but because his eloquent discourse conforms to the chivalric style of speech, Don Quixote listens respectfully.
Don Quixote insists he is imitating the heroes of the chivalric novels, but Cervantes places him on the side of the authors and readers. “Like them, he is vain, pompous, and gullible,” and concerned more with appearance than with substance (Allen 63). In “An Adventure on Leaving the Inn,” upon hearing the cries of a Shepard boy being beaten, Don Quixote’s first thought is only for himself and his own glory – he thanks God for the opportunity to mete out justice (47). The pain the boy is suffering in inconsequential.
Upon introducing the servant Maritornes, Cervantes describes her unattractive face, followed up by the qualifier “But she made up for her other shortcomings by her bodily allurements…” (118). He then goes on to describe her even more unattractive body.
Later in the story, Sancho has to once more leave his wife to rejoin Don Quixote. Though eager to leave, he feels guilty about abandoning his family again. When his wife asks him why he is so cheerful, Sancho reveals his mixed feelings by replying “If it pleased God, I should be very glad, wife, not to be as happy as I seem” (497).
At one point, Don Quixote and Sancho meet up with galley slaves, criminals who are on their way to be punished. Questioning one of the guards about who the slaves to, he is told that they are the king’s property. Don Quixote, however asserts his belief that the men should go free and answer only to God for their crimes. He attacks the guard, and the slaves escape. Don Quixote, who has pledged his loyalty to the king, is now in the tenuous position of having committed treason (178, 258).
Another form of humor that Cervantes uses is slapstick. Slapstick is “physical comedy, characterized by broad humor, absurd situations and vigorous, usually violent action” (brittancia.com). The humor can be vulgar and often involves bodily functions. Cervantes employs slapstick when Don Quixote concocts his famous balsam that can cure any physical injury including being cut in half at the waist.
The balsam causes him to vomit, but after a few hours of rest, he feel restored. When Sancho swallows the mixture, he becomes so sick that he “[empties] himself at both ends” (129). Don Quixote notes that the pain Sancho suffers is the result of his not being a knight. The ever-practical Sancho then demands to know why Don Quixote gave him the balsam, knowing that only a knight could take it (128).
More scatological humor is used when, in the aftermath of a battle, Don Quixote asks Sancho to peer into his mouth and count his remaining teeth. As Sancho does this, the rest of the balsam in the knight’s system comes up, and Don Quixote vomits all over Sancho. Repulsed by the smell and taste, Sancho follows suit by vomiting on his master (Cervantes 139).
In “A Tremendous Exploit Achieved,” Sancho has to relieve some gas pains. Quietly lowering his trousers, he tries to relieve himself as noiselessly as possible. Unfortunately, the knight has a keen sense of smell and hearing. Don Quixote pinches his nose shut and offers the opinion that Sancho must be frightened “because you smell more now, and not of ambergris.” Don Quixote tells Sancho to move away and chastises him for not having more respect for his master (156).
Slapstick does not always have to be offensive. In one hilarious episode, the servant Maritornes enters a communal sleeping room to meet up with her lover for the night. Don Quixote thinks she has come to see him and grasps her arm. Her lover comes over to rescue her and strikes the knight. The bed cannot support so much weight and crashes to the floor. The innkeeper wakes up and searches for the source of the commotion. Maritornes, afraid of being caught by her employer, climbs into bed next to Sancho. Sancho, feeling a weight on him, thinks he is having a nightmare and flails about wildly, striking Maritornes. Maritornes returns the blows and “the two of them [start] the most stubborn and comical scuffle in the world.”
Maritornes’ lover attempts to come to her rescue again. The innkeeper follows with the intention of beating Maritornes, whom he suspects of instigating the whole messy affair. The innkeeper’s light crashes to the floor and is extinguished, leaving the combatants to land blows in complete blackness. An officer of the Ancient and Holy Brotherhood of Toledo who is staying at the inn intervenes in the fight. The first thing he does upon entering the room is to fall over the unconscious Don Quixote (Cervantes 123-124). This frenzied activity leaves the reader dizzy.
How did Cervantes use his gifts to make people laugh? According to John Morreall, Cervantes is successful at the three techniques that a humorist must follow: he engage[s] the interest of those he wants to amuse and thus [has] some control over their train of thought”; he keeps us grounded in reality by taking fantastic situations and putting them in the real world; and he continually surprises us by keeping us guessing as to the outcome of each new adventure (82-83).
Cervantes, with his desire to entertain his readers, knew that the importance of humor and laughter in our lives cannot be overstated. According to Bell, “humor is the head that perceives the exquisite comedy of life and the heart that feels its poignant sadness. Without a deep tragic sense there can be no humor, without some inkling of comedy there can be no wit; humor embraces both” (183). Humor bridges the extremes of the human condition. It covers the range of emotion from tragedy to comedy. Adrienne Laskier Martin observes that “humor and its manifestations are of profound and vital significance to both social history and literary studies; without knowledge of what makes us laugh and why, our understanding of human nature and of literature in any given time and place is incomplete” (1). What is considered funny differs vastly from culture to culture and even within a single culture. Appreciation of humor also varies among individuals.
In his book Taking Laughter Seriously, Morreall identifies three theories of humor that help explain why we laugh and what we find humorous. All three theories apply to the humor used in Don Quixote.
The Superiority Theory states that we laugh at people whom we believe are inferior to us. A person who thinks he is wiser or more virtuous than he really is inspires mirth. Don Quixote is a perfect example of this. He praises himself and his heroic deeds constantly, even though he professes to dislike compliments (Cervantes 257). We laugh at failure, especially when the person striving for the goal does not even realize he has failed. Don Quixote proves this many times, such as when he believes he has saved the Shepard boy from a beating when in reality, after the knight’s intervention, the boy receives an even more severe beating (49-50). However, our laughter is tempered with affection. We find Don Quixote’s inflated sense of self- importance humorous but, because he is a well meaning but deluded old man, we also feel benevolent toward him. Henri Bergson, a 20th century French philosopher, takes a darker view of the Superiority Theory: “laughter is the corrective punishment inflicted by society upon the unsocial individual: ‘In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbor’ ”(qtd. in brittanica.com). According to this pessimistic opinion, people laugh at Don Quixote because they believe that by humiliating him, they can persuade him to conform to society’s norms.
In the Incongruity Theory, amusement is caused by our reaction to something that is unexpected, illogical or inappropriate to the circumstances. The world is supposed to be an orderly place where we can expect certain patterns to be followed and specific circumstances to have anticipated outcomes. We laugh when something out of the ordinary occurs and our presumed pattern is not followed. There is a marked contrast between what we expect to see and what really happens. This theory gives an explanation of irony. One of the simplest kinds of incongruity that makes us laugh is when something is not what we expect it to be. A knight is supposed to be young and handsome, clad in shiny armor and sitting astride a powerful steed. Instead, we are presented with an old man wearing rusted, moldy armor, sitting on a sad caricature of a noble horse, an emaciated old nag that is covered with sores and never moves faster than a slow walk. A knight is also supposed to be selfless, putting the needs of helpless individuals before his own; it is for this purpose that Don Quixote supposedly became a knight. Not only does he actually worsen situations for the people he is supposed to help, his main reason for becoming a knight is to win glory for himself, which is not a chivalric ideal. He often speaks of his great deeds and valorous exploits and dreams of the stories that will be written about him, even as his narrator makes fun of him, claiming that the hot sun beating down on him “would have been enough to turn his brain, if he had any” (Cervantes 37).
The Relief Theory views laughter as a means of venting nervous energy. A person may enter a situation with tension already built up; the laughter then releases it. On the other hand, the situation itself may build up energy that needs to be expended. This type of laughter, like crying, has a cathartic effect. Throughout the story of Don Quixote, we feel a sense of relief that we are not treated as cruelly as the knight and squire are. We are reassured that, unlike Don Quixote, our mental facilities are intact. Even though each new adventure leaves our poor hero and his sidekick battered and bruised, we laugh with relief that they have lived through another perilous experience. On these occasions, Morreall notes, it is morally acceptable to cause minor pain for a laugh.
All of these theories have as a basic principle a sudden change. We are caught off guard by what has happened and the end result is a pleasant “psychological shift” which makes us feel good and provokes laughter (Morreall 39).
Provoking laughter is what Cervantes had in mind when he wrote Don Quixote. The humor in Don Quixote has helped make it an enduring literary classic, appreciated and enjoyed by readers throughout history. Cervantes’ ability to know what makes people laugh is what places him above most other humorists. Basic aspects of humanity do not change; Cervantes addressed this fundamental core of human nature without being restrained by fashions and time periods. Cervantes always insisted that his primary aim in writing Don Quixote was to entertain his readers. Even if that were the only element in his novel, his success would still have been immeasurable.
Also influencing Cervantes in writing Don Quixote were the carnivals that were popular in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Celebrations such as the Feast of Fools and The Feast of the Ass featured a character known as the clown-king. During the clown-king’s short-lived period of rule, Gorkfle reports, “his madness [freed] him from social restraints and [allowed] him to blot out official reason” (20). During the chaos that reigned during Carnival, almost anything was permissible, including aggression. At his unmasking, the clown king would be beaten and subjected to verbal abuse. Don Quixote shares some of the irrationality of the clown-king; however, his madness is confined to matters of chivalry and errant knighthood. The knight also suffers beatings stemming from his interference in other people’s business. The verbal abuse he receives usually concerns his state of mental health. Other people he encounters allow him to live out his fantasies, if only so they can ridicule him.
In another tradition of Carnival, the servant was temporarily equal to the master. In “His Meeting with the Goatherds,” Cervantes depicts this tradition when the knight insists the reluctant Sancho join him and share a meal. According to Professor Gorfkle, Sancho often inadvertently follows other Carnival traditions. The servant “often frustrates his master’s desires” either accidentally because he is clumsy or deliberately because he wishes to prevent an action.
For instance, Sancho ties Rocinante’s forelegs together to prevent Don Quixote from leaving. Additionally, the servant makes fun of his master behind his back, thereby reducing the master’s positive influence on the audience. Sancho routinely mimics Don Quixote’s grandiose speech and wonders aloud about his mental imbalance. Finally, the servant is usually punished for the misdeeds of the master. When Don Quixote’s deranged perspective frustrates and angers the people they encounter, Sancho usually bears the brunt of the physical brutality that should rightly be directed at his master. Sancho suffers from beatings, a blanket tossing, and even the loss of Dapple, his beloved donkey (28).
Another tradition of carnival was the hanging of a dummy in the town square, a target of persecution (Gorfkle 54). Cervantes used a similar motif in “The Mule Boy and Other Matters.” The innkeeper’s daughter, pretending to be in love with Don Quixote, and the servant Maritornes trick Don Quixote into standing on Rocinante’s back so the daughter can touch his hand through a hole in the loft. Maritornes ties his wrists and both women depart, leaving Don Quixote stranded overnight. The next morning, some travelers arrive at the inn. Rocinante makes a move towards one of their horses, leaving Don Quixote dangling helplessly in mid-air (Cervantes 391-396).
Cervantes also used a gimmick that was popular in 16th century Italian comedy, contrasting two main characters, a tall, thin man and a short, fat man. Lowell points out that contrast is vital to humor – that a humorist should be a “two-idea” man (42). Aubrey Bell agrees, but adds that the humorous mind, which insists on seeing both sides of every story, is doomed in our “one track mind” world (197).
Works Cited
Allen, John J. Don Quixote: Hero or Fool? Gainesville: University
Presses of Florida, 1974.
Bell, Aubrey F.G. Cervantes. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947.
Brittanica.com – https://www.brittanica.com
“Cervantes.” Encyclopedia Brittanica. 1992.
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Trans. J.M. Cohen, London:
Penguin Books Ltd., 1950.
Close, A.J. The Romantic Approach to Don Quixote. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Gorfkle, Laura J. Discovering the Comic in Don Quixote. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
Johnson, Carroll B. Don Quixote The Quest for Modern Fiction. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
Laskier Martin, Adrienne. Cervantes and the Burlesque Sonnet. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Lowell, James Russell. The Function of the Poet. Ed. Albert Mordell. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1967.
Morreall, John. Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany: State University of New York, 1983.
Person, James E., ed. Literature Criticism from 1400-1800. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1987.
Putnam, Samuel, ed. Trans. The Portable Cervantes. New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc., 1978.
Sturman, Marianne. Cliff’s Notes. Ed. James L. Roberts, Ph.D. Lincoln, E: Bethany Station, 1964.
Watt, Ian. Myths of Modern Individualism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996