The narrators

[Didone]

In my literature class we are studying Don Quixote, last Tuesday the professor explained the different narrators. The problem is that I couldn't understand him and I still can't. I read a lot but I don't know why I simply cannot process the Quixote. I'm trying really hard but it's useless. I end up confused and with a headache. I tried searching on the internet but nothing came, well yes but they were really hard essays. (http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/12482283119020404198624/p0000001.htm#I_4_)

Could anyone explain me the in a, simple, plain, way how the narrators in the Quixote are organized and who are they?. Thank you in advance.

[JHannley]

Strange, isn't it? Don Quijote and Sancho are home from their adventures and Carrasco reports that a book has been published about their adventures. When they meet up with the Duke and Duchess ( approx. chapt. 30) the D & D are already familiar with them having read the book! I don't know what the purpose of this device was for Cervantes.

[Manchegan]

the edith grossman translation I read was really good about explaining that in the foot notes. I might be mistaken here, but I believe Cide Hamete is the pretend original author of Don Quixote's history, and Cervantes is pretending to be the guy to translate it into Spanish.

I think the purpose is partly that it mimics a popular form in the old chivalry books quixote reads, but the method of releasing the first part of the story in the pretend world of the second part is equal parts epic and hilarious.

It let's quixote know that he has become not just a heroic knight, but a work of art.

[chrismythoi]

i have not finished the book yet but am into the second book, and have these things to say on the narrator.
i think the narrator in the book is extremely fascinating for one, for as your confusion may suggest, he is a nebulous and evasive entity that does not fit the mould of a traditional narrator. cervantes' narrator is neither himself, nor a character, nor even perfect in the sense of being ubiquitous, omniscient etc. however, cervantes' most often portrays the narrator as a recounter of the events in the story, through the imaginary genre of the history of the don's adventures. this is greatly complicated by the emergence of carrasco and his knowledge of the book having been written, even though the only person who could have written the book is ironically the narrator.
the narrator is also made more coomplex by a self-awareness oten lacking in most books. for example if one were to read the author's preface to brothers karamazov, or the novel dead souls, then you may see examples of a writer being aware of his work's reception and so therefore also aware of how to set it out in order to confound any critics. in don quixote this is often done with the narrator saying such things as, 'on these matters the history is rather threadbare' or also the chapter titles, often things such as, 'the events in the inn which are worth relating in this history.'

i hope these comments have found favour to thine ears and so forth.

[Kotetsu1442]

Could anyone explain me the in a, simple, plain, way how the narrators in the Quixote are organized and who are they?. Thank you in advance.

Well, as far as how they are organized, they aren't really. Their comments just occasionally drop in as asides in the story. But it's pretty simple to follow the narrators as characters in relation to the rest of the story. Cervantes uses himself as a character, claiming to be a translator of this work as a history, and he relates obtaining manuscripts in Arabic and subsequently translating them, with his commentary, to make the book we are reading. The author of the manuscripts is the (fictional) Moorish historian Cide Hamete Benengeli, who documents the life of Don Quixote by having the various people involved in Don Quixote's life describe their role in the events and documenting them (though often interjecting his own commentary).


... and Carrasco reports that a book has been published about their adventures. When they meet up with the Duke and Duchess ( approx. chapt. 30) the D & D are already familiar with them having read the book! I don't know what the purpose of this device was for Cervantes.

The thing you have to remember here, is that even though they are published together as a single book now, Volume 1 and Volume 2 were released a decade apart (In 1605 and 1615). It's never specific within the story how long has passed between the two, though it seems like only a couple months at most (it begins with the curate and the barber visiting to see how Don Quixote has recovered) but apparently, according to Sancho, the two are now fairly famous in region due to people relating their adventures, so it is conceivable that Benengeli was able to gather the tales, and document them them. You are correct, it does not really fit into this that in only a couple of months, while Don Quixote recovered, Bengengeli was able to write series of documents on the adventures, then Cervantes find and translate them and have them mass produced (Don Quixote even comments early on in Volume 2 how it is amazing that the book is out so soon after their adventures); however, in criticizing historical authorship of the time, deliberate inaccuracies are abound in Volume 1 as a running gag, so employing this historical impossibility is not out of line with this device.

As far as the purpose of the self-referential nature of the book, in Volume 1 it served mainly to comment on authorship, Benengeli's excessive opinions and subjective way of relating the story criticize the way historians of the time had often embellished the medieval subjects they were writing about to make them more 'chivalrous.'

In Volume 2, Cervantes also uses this device to jokingly praise his own work and make fun of the story written under the name Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, which was published in 1614 and served as a sequel to the original. Apparently Cervantes didn't like what the other author had done with his characters and wrote Volume 2 having the characters discover these 'false tales' and react to them, while praising Cervante's translation. In Volume 1 one of Cervante's jokes was inserting several very obvious mistakes, like changing the spelling or the names of characters entirely in different place (for example, sometimes Sancho mentions that his wife's is named Teresa, in another he refers to her as Joana). When Avellaneda picked one particular name and stuck with it in his sequel, Cervantes in Volume 2 has the character make fun of him by saying he used the wrong name. Through this device, Cervantes is declaring the events in Avellaneda's book to be non-canonical to the story, and within the story it is a fictional writing about real people.