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Christopher BrownLiterary Study II: Prose FictionDr. Waterman Ward8 February 2009
The “Play” of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
The humor of 
 Don Quixote
is ironic, created by the juxtaposition of expectation and real-ity—aspirations and dashed hopes—mixed together in discrete but shared quantities through DonQuixote and Sancho Panza. Those two protagonists escape stereotyping by continually usurpingthe other’s role, preventing a conclusive circumscription of either character. Even in the end,Cervantes preserves ambivalence in the reader toward Sancho and Quixote; the close of the book does not raise one of the two above the other; rather, the amalgamation of Sancho-Quixote re-mains inseparable though heterogenous. What facilitates this freedom is the inter 
 play
betweenthe two, both of whom have amorphous or shifting centers, that elude prediction.Jacques Derrida, in his essay “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the HumanSciences,” posits a mode of literary criticism called “decentering,” which in basic terms claimsthat that all creators of a “structure” assign an integral and inherently unavoidable “center” totheir work. This center “permits the play of elements inside the total form” while “[closing] off the play which it opens up and makes possible,” thus inducing the analytical reader to decenter the structure in order to allow the “play” more freedom (278-80). Structuralism asserts that theculmination of the “totality” of the structure is precisely at the constraining center (which is“both in the structure and
outside it 
”) (279). But Derrida the deconstructionist claims, instead,that the
 gestalt 
of the “totality” (both center and play) is fundamentally both greater and else-where than the original center (279). The titular “play” is precisely wherein lies the gestalt; a re- jection of center, and of centers in general, must precede the post-structuralist interpretation of any literary work. This particular aspect of Derrida’s essay resembles Mikhail Bakhtin’s “poly- phony,” but extends the concept monomaniacally to encircle semiology, epistemology, phe-nomenology, and exegesis.With this reading,
†
 the interchanges between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza become thedecentered content of 
 Don Quixote
; it is transgressive to consider them finite characters with def-inite ends. For example, at the castle of the duke and duchess, Don Quixote and Sancho Panzaare separated. During the other’s absence, each unhappily achieves their ultimate goal. Quixote becomes the high-adventuring, appreciated knight that he has been striving to become, whoseknighthood is confirmed by a
real 
duke and duchess in a
real 
castle, despite which he insistsupon leaving. Sancho, similarly, becomes the governor of a respectable province that he managesadmirably, but he abdicates in order to return to Don Quixote. Each wants to be back on the road,striving for exactly what he currently possesses; a repudiation of his goal out of preference for its pursuit. The duke gives to each what their centers seem to be directed toward, but this direct con-frontation succeeds only in revealing the evanescence of those centers.Derrida quotes Montaigne at the beginning of his essay: “We need to interpret interpreta-tions more than to interpret things” (278). Decentering is the advantaging of method over con-tent; the reflexion of the interpretation of interpretations reveals much more that the interpreta-tion of things can miss entirely by reaching an end and thinking it is conclusive. If Don Quixoteand Sancho Panza are evaluated as characters that are the sum of their actions, the result is two
†
Derrida’s “play” extends more widely to the interaction of structures on a macroscopic level as well, such as between distinct books, not just characters, but the microcosmic aspect of the theory is equally viable and better suited to the format of this essay.
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