That Miguel de Cervantes laid the foundations for an altogether novel conception of literary

character in his seminal contribution to the Western literary canon, Don Quijote de la Mancha, is a
proposition that few, if any, would oppose. As Anthony J. Close has observed: ‘More than anyone
else, Cervantes helped to make character a primary theme of prose ction’.1 Even so, and despite
an extensive body of literature on the subject, few commentators have undertaken to analyse the
characterisation of the novel’s protagonistic duo in a suitably comprehensive fashion, with criticism
having instead tended to fall into one of two polarised camps. On the one hand, since the advent of
Romanticism, and to an even greater extent following the psychoanalytic revolution of the early-
twentieth century, there has been a notable surge in psychologically-based interpretations of the
evolution of Don Quixote and Sancho among critics such as Ruth El Saffar, Dámaso Alonso and
Salvador de Madariaga. On the other hand, and in somewhat of a countersurge, we nd the
approach of scholars such as Augustin Redondo and Eduardo Urbina, both of whom deny that the
evolution of the characters be attributable to genuine psychological development, insisting instead
upon their primary function within the narrative as burlesque, grotesque and carnivalesque gures
of ridicule to whom various stereotypical character traits are temporarily af xed, as and when
Cervantes so wishes, in order to bring about a particular parodic effect or other. While both
arguments unquestionably have their merits, both also have their respective failings: in the rst
case, anachronism and the assumption that Cervantes always had psychological realism in mind
whilst devising the words and actions of his swashbuckling doubleton; in the second case, a
disregard for the gradual humanisation and progressive nuancing of personal identity that take
place in the case of both Don Quixote and Sancho over the course of the novel, and especially in
Part Two. The common thread to such theories, as well as the reason why I believe they are, on
the whole, unsatisfactory, is that they are reductive and tend generally to essentialise and
oversimplify what are in effect two incredibly complex, multilayered and polyfacetic literary
characters. In this essay, therefore, I will align myself primarily with the views of Close in holding
that it is actually by application of a balanced synthesis of these theories — along with some others
not yet mentioned — rather than one only, that we may best analyse the evolution of Don Quixote
and Sancho across the novel. In so doing, it is hoped that we may return to a conception of
characterisation that is altogether more akin to the manner in which Cervantes himself both
envisaged and engendered his two most-beloved brainchildren.
Notwithstanding whatever cause for discord there may be thereafter, there can be no
disagreement surrounding the fact that, from the moment he is introduced to the reader in the rst
chapter of Part One until the end of the rst sally in chapter ve, Don Quixote is invariably
presented as a risible lunatic. Repeatedly, his less-than-graceful physique, archaic manner of
speech, pretension to knight-errantry and imitation of chivalric romance literature are ridiculed by
both the narrator — ‘el sol entraba tan apriesa y con tanto ardor, que fuera bastante a derretirle los
sesos (si algunos tuviera)’2 — and other characters, such as the prostitutes at Juan Palomeque’s
inn. In addition, he is unremittingly the subject of degrading, slapstick humour: in the space of two
chapters he is pelted with stones (I. 3, 132), thrown from Rocinante in the middle of a charge (I. 4,
142) and beaten to a pulp by a lowly servant boy (I. 4, 143).

1Anthony J. Close, ‘Psychology and Function in the Comic Characters of Spanish Golden-Age Literature’, in Cervantes:
Essays in Memory of E.C. Riley on the Quatercentenary of Don Quixote, ed. by Jeremy Robins and Edwin Williamson
(Oxford: Routledge, 2005), pp. 13-27 (p. 17).

2 Miguel de Cervantes, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, ed. by John Jay Allen, 2 vols. (Madrid: Cátedra,
2016), I, II, p. 122. Note to the Reader: all subsequent references to the Quijote relate to this edition and will be given in
the format: part, chapter, page number.
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 As Redondo3 and Close,4 among others, have shown, the one-dimensionality that governs
Don Quixote’s personality in the early chapters of Part One is due in large part to the fact that, in
truth, he does not at this point in the narrative have much of a personality at all. Rather, he is a
parodic motley of folkloric and literary types. His fanciful imagination and lanky frame, for instance,
recall the Capitano of the commedia dell’arte, his injudicious belligerence parodies the wrath of
Roland in Orlando Furioso and his cloying professions of love for Dulcinea echo those of the love-
crazed Calisto and Romeus. Some critics, such as Otis H. Green, reject this theory of super cial
characterisation on Cervantes’ behalf and instead argue that Don Quixote’s descent into madness,
as well as delirious hallucinations, choleric temperament and even physical appearance, are wholly
consistent with contemporary understanding of psycho-physiological phenomena.5 In reality,
however, there is no need to privilege the one theory over the other, nor is there any reason not to
believe that both may have coexisted in Cervantes’ mind, for in spite of their obverse approaches
they ultimately combine to further steer the characterisation of Don Quixote in one direction and in
one direction only at the outset of the novel: ‘la de ser vehículo principal de la burla de los libros de
caballerías’ (Close, p. 45)
Now, if Cervantes be partly indebted to literary and folkloric antecedents for the character of
Don Quixote, then he is surely obliged to an even greater extent for that of his rustic squire. Before
having even made his entrance, Sancho Panza is likened to the ingenuous simpleton-fool of pre-
lopean drama — ‘un hombre de bien […] pero de muy poca sal en la mollera’ (I. 7, 163) — and his
very rst utterance reveals a worldly avariciousness that parodies the non-materialistic virtue of
Amadís de Gaula’s squire, Gandalín: ‘Mire vuestra merced, señor caballero andante, que no se le
olvide lo que de la ínsula me tiene prometido’ (I. 7, 164). Indeed, as Close remarks, many, if not all,
of Sancho’s default character traits — credulousness, greed, indolence, cowardice — are inherited
directly from the simples and bobos of Spanish Golden-Age theatre.6 Thus, if Don Quixote is the
at, parodic anti-knight, then Sancho is the equally-as-shallow, comic anti-squire.
As has been universally recognised, the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza of Avellaneda’s
apocryphal sequel never develop beyond these monofacetic caricatures; the former is invariably
crazy and the latter is unfailingly stupid. In the authentic version, however, this is not the case, for
as the narrative progresses through Part One both master and squire begin to exhibit an increasing
number of dimensions to their character in a process which Redondo has aptly referred to as
‘matización’ (p. 856). For example, we need only wait until the eleventh chapter before Don
Quixote experiences the rst of his lúcidos intervalos, which, while infrequent in Part One, will
come to dominate his personality in the second part of the novel. Granted, his untimely harangue
on the golden age of mankind is set within a purely parodical context and is a complete rhetorical
failure on his part — ‘hacer aquel inútil razonamiento a los cabreros […] embobados’ (I. 11, 196) —
but it is nevertheless an eloquent and well-structured speech and certainly not the incoherent
babbling of a madman. We may, furthermore, compare this rst occurrence with one from later on
in the novel, in chapter thirty-eight, where Don Quixote vehemently defends the superiority of the
sword over the pen at the supper table in Juan Palomeque’s inn. On this occasion, unlike the

3Augustin Redondo, ‘El personaje de don Quijote: tradiciones folklórico-literarias, contexto histórico y elaboración
cervantina’, in Actas del VII Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas, ed. by Giuseppe Bellini, 2 vols.
(Venice: Bulzoni, 1982), II, pp. 847-856 (pp. 848-850).

4Anthony J. Close, ’La construcción de los personajes de don Quijote y Sancho’, in Cervantes y el Quijote, ed. by Emilio
Martínez Mata (Madrid: Editorial Arco Libros, 2007), pp. 39-55 (p. 44).

5 Otis H. Green, ‘El Ingenioso Hidalgo’, Hispanic Review, 25, 3 (1957), 175-193.

6 Anthony J. Close, ‘Sancho Panza: Wise Fool’, Modern Language Review, 68, 2 (1973), 344-357 (p. 344).
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 previous one, and very much unlike the last time he set foot in the inn, not only is his rationality
commended by the priest but, in addition, the other characters are moved to feel compassion for
him: ‘En los que escuchado le habían sobrevino nueva lástima de ver hombre que, al parecer,
tenía buen entendimiento y buen discuro en todas las cosas que trataba’ (I. 38, 521). Quite
evidently, this is no longer the invariably farcical Don Quixote from the beginning of the novel.
Sancho, too, during this time, experiences his own evolution of character, and nowhere is
this more evident than in his growing ingenuity and wit. As we have already stated, in the early
chapters of the novel Sancho’s de ning character trait is his gullibility: he trusts unquestioningly in
the curative powers of the bálsamo de Fierabrás, even after it causes Don Quixote to vomit, for
example, and he also allows himself be convinced that an enchanted Moor haunts the inn in
chapter seventeen. In chapter twenty, however, we are told:

Viendo, pues, Sancho la última resolución de su amo y cuán poco valían con él
sus lágrimas, consejos y ruegos, determinó de aprovecharse de su industria y
hacerle esperar hasta el día, si pudiese; y así, cuando apretaba las cinchas al
caballo, bonitamente y sin ser sentido ató con el cabestro de su asno ambos pies
a Rocinante, de manera que cuando don Quijote se quiso partir no pudo, porque
el caballo no se podía mover sino a saltos (I. 20, 281).

Such a display of quick thinking on Sancho’s part is merely the rst in a whole series of similar
deceptions at his master’s expense — such as his on-the-spot fabrication of his meeting with
Dulcinea (I. 31) — that will continue to occur intermittently for the duration of Part One and that will
of course culminate in his ‘enchantment’ of Dulcinea at the beginning of Part Two. Moreover, this
budding wit is complemented by the commencement of Sancho’s (in)famous penchant for sage
proverbs (I. 19, 276) and by increasing recognition of his good sense by both Don Quixote and the
other characters: ‘Parecióles [al cura y al babrero] bien lo que Sancho decía’ (I. 27, 372). Finally,
the evolution of Sancho’s character is taken to an extreme at the close of Part One when, despite
having persistently been the fearful milksop of the duo, it is he who courageously comes to his
master’s rescue by tackling, then proceeding to brawl with, Eugenio (I. 52, 653).
It is at this point of our discussion, however, that we must be careful to make clear by what
method it is that Cervantes is guiding the evolution of his two protagonists. It may well be that, by
the end of Part One, Sancho has proven himself to be witty, wise and valiant, but we must also
remind ourselves of his nal involvement in it:

Sancho Panza […] dio voces a su moledor que no le diese otro palo, porque era
un pobre caballero encantado […]. […] no hizo otra cosa sino arrojarse sobre el
cuerpo de su señor, haciendo sobre él el más doloroso y risueño llanto del
mundo (I. 52, 656).

In like manner, Don Quixote may well have shown himself to be sound of mind and judgement, but
we must not forget that his nal contribution is to threaten a procession of penitents with death
should they refuse to release from imprisonment the statue of the Virgin Mary that they are
carrying (I. 52, 655). What is more, these contradictions of character are in no way unique to the
nale but, rather, occur repeatedly throughout the rst part of the novel: not long after his cogent
discourse on the subject of arms and letters, Don Quixote thus welcomes a magistrate who arrives
at Juan Palomeque’s inn: ‘Seguramente puede vuestra merced entrar y espaciarse en este castillo
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 […]. Entre vuestra merced, digo, en este paraíso; que aquí hallará estrellas y soles que
acompañen el cielo que vuestra merced trae consigo’ (I. 42, 566). In a similar fashion, shortly
following the priest’s praise of his ingenuity in chapter twenty-seven, we are told: ‘quedó tan
contento Sancho cuanto el cura admirado de su simplicidad’ (I. 29, 408).
All of these incongruities point to one conclusion: the characterisation of Don Quixote and
Sancho in Part One of the novel is not consistent. Rather than an organic, linear psychological
development, theirs resembles much more closely, as Close has put it: ‘un proceso de bricolaje en
que se van agregando casualmente piezas nuevas a un armazón asentado de antemano’ (2007,
p. 43). Some critics, such as Dámaso Alonso, oppose this assessment, maintaining instead that
Sancho sporadically acquires, unacquires and reacquires certain character traits on account of
psychological oscillations between illusion and disillusion; an argument that essentially amounts to
a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder.7 Others, such as Green, have attempted to ascribe
Don Quixote’s alternating bouts of lunacy and lucidity to natural psycho-physiological causes,
namely a lack of sleep (pp. 177-180). While I acknowledge the plausibility of such contentions,
their validity is ultimately devalued by a host of exceptions and oversights: not only is it illogical to
apply post-Cervantine psychological theory to his characters, but Alonso also fails to recognise that
it is in exclusively parodic contexts that Sancho’s ingenuity is evinced — his sound deductive
reasoning in chapter forty-eight as to why his master cannot really be enchanted, for instance, is
founded on a scatological premise — and Green likewise overlooks the episode in which Don
Quixote awakens to slaughter Juan Palomeque’s wineskins in the belief that they are giants (I. 35,
487). It is far more probable, therefore, that Sancho’s picaresque, roguish wit and Don Quixote’s
arbitrista-esque declamations in Part One of the novel are not so much evidence of genuine
personal development as they are indicative of an accumulation of temporary, super cial and
demountable character traits which serve only to ful l certain narrative functions, parodic or other,
rather than represent true-to-life, coherent psychologies.
Part Two, published ten years after Part One, picks up very much where the latter leaves
off, and Cervantes is sure to remind his reader of Don Quixote and Sancho’s primordial character
traits: ‘no me maravillo tanto de la locura del caballero como de la simplicidad del escudero’ (II. 2,
56). It is not long, however, before a number of meaningful changes — from the point of view of
characterisation — begin to take place, the earliest of which comes in chapter ten and on the
occasion of Sancho’s famed soliloquy. As has been widely observed, this monologue constitutes
Sancho’s rst veritable prise de conscience de soi, since not only does he recognise his master’s
lunacy but, furthermore, he also acknowledges his own ingenuousness: ‘Este mi amo, por mil
señales, he visto que es un loco de atar, y aun también yo no le quedo en zaga, pues yo soy más
mentecato que él, pues le sigo y le sirvo’ (II. 10, 116). Similarly, although he continues to show
himself to be of unsound mind, Don Quixote is manifestly more conscious of his propensity to
hallucinate — ‘así como vi este carro imaginé que alguna grande aventura se me ofrecía, y ahora
digo que es menester tocar las apariencias con la mano para dar lugar al desengaño’ (II. 11, 127)
— and, in addition, far more mindful of his madness: ‘¿Quién duda, señor don Diego de Miranda,
que vuestra merced no me tenga en su opinión por un hombre disparatado y loco?’ (II. 17, 181). It
is at this stage of the novel, and no earlier, I would argue, that we really see the beginnings of what
may justi ably be called psychological development in the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza, since it is not until this point that both achieve a suf cient degree of self-awareness so as to

7Dámaso Alonso, ‘Oscillation in the Character of Sancho’, trans. by Nikki Beidleman, in Critical Essays on Cervantes,
ed. by Ruth El Saffar (Massachusetts: G. K. Hall & Co., 1986), pp. 53-58.
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 be cognisant of their personal attributes and, hence, to act either in accordance or discordance
with them and with their newly-established sense of self.
Now, in no way is this to say that the function-centric, bricolage characterisation typical of
Part One of the novel has been eclipsed by psychological realism, as Knud Togeby, among others,
would have it.8 To my mind, Urbina,9 Redondo,10 and Close (1973, pp. 351-355) have all
adequately demonstrated that on a host of occasions in Part Two — in particular those episodes
that revolve around the ducal palace and the ínsula Barataría — both Don Quixote and Sancho
serve as corporeal substrates to which various comic and parodic character traits — such as those
of the court-buffoon, holy fool or carnivalesque Rey de Gallos — are temporarily af xed. Moreover,
there is the issue of the loco-cuerdo and tonto-ingenio dichotomies, psychological contrarieties that
mystify all those who meet the pair: ‘dejando a don Juan y a don Jerónimo admirados de ver la
mezcla que había hecho de su discreción y de su locura’ (II. 59, 535). Nevertheless, it cannot be
denied that, in comparison to Part One, this method of super cial characterisation is increasingly
shot through in Part Two with genuine, non-comic and non-parodic psychological evolution of the
two protagonists, of which there are a wealth of examples in the text: the progressive cessation of
Don Quixote’s hallucinations; the growing esteem in which others hold his opinions — compare, for
instance, ‘no le estimaran en dos ardites’ (I. 17, 255) to ‘al par de la valentía le graduaron la
discreción, teniéndole por un Cid en las armas y por un Cicerón en la elocuencia’ (II. 22, 220) —;
the marked decrease in his belligerency — it is he who dissuades Sancho from violence after
being trampled by a passel of hogs (II. 68, 604) —; his slow descent into disillusionment and
melancholy which, unlike that of the Sierra Morena, is real and heartfelt; Sancho’s heightening
sense of moral responsibility — he vows to renounce his governorship (the very reason for which
he originally agreed to accompany Don Quixote) should the latter deem that it would be detrimental
to the sanctity of his soul (II. 43, 395) —; and, nally, Sancho’s diminishing avariciousness — he
refuses to help Ricote unearth his buried treasure in exchange for monetary recompense, for
example, out of loyalty to the King (II. 54, 493).
As Close has noted, it is the progressive, largely linear and cause-effect nature of these
changes that singles them out as indicative of veritable personal development, rather than merely
the super cial af xation of character traits (2007, p. 52). Of course, it must be acknowledged that,
even in the case of these true-to-life psychological progressions, there are occasional
discontinuities, regressions and contradictions for the purposes of comedy and parody — Sancho’s
sorrow in chapter seventy-one, for example, not because of his master’s defeat and subsequent
banishment from knight-errantry but, rather, because Altisidora has forgotten to hand over the
shirts that she had promised him, in which case the spontaneous return of his avariciousness is
obviously intended to serve as a de ating, prosaic and comic counterpoint to Don Quixote’s lofty,
poetic melancholy — but such instances, as the narrative advances through Part Two, increasingly
assume the status of outliers vis-à-vis the more general trend toward realistic psychological
evolution, which at all times underlies them.
By the close of the novel, at which point Don Quixote the crazed knight-errant has
rebecome Alonso Quixano the sane nobleman and Sancho the comic squire has once more
become Sancho Panza the simple peasant-farmer, it is quite evident that what Miguel de

8Knud Togeby, La estructura del Quijote, trans. by Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar (Sevilla: Publicaciones de la
Universidad de Sevilla, 1977), p. 24.

9 Eduardo Urbina, El sin par Sancho Panza: Parodia y creación (Barcelona: Editorial Anthropos, 1991)

10Augustin Redondo, ‘Tradición carnavalesca y creación literaria: del personaje de Sancho Panza al episodio de la
ínsula Baritaría en el Quijote’, Bulletin Hispanique, 80 (1978), 39-70.
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 Cervantes was doing with regard to literary character in early-seventeenth century Spain is
something that few, if indeed any at all, of his contemporaries were even contemplating, let alone
putting into practice. In Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Cervantes envisaged, engendered and
developed two protagonists that are at once polyfacetic and multilayered, at once super cially-
expansive and psychologically-profound — in short, at once pre-modern and modern. On the one
hand, his swashbuckling doubleton t very much within the theoretical climate of Spanish Golden-
Age literature: the multiple, changeable and occasionally-contradictory character traits for which
they serve as corporeal vessels in order to ful l a certain narrative function or other (be it parodic,
comic, satiric, ironic or other) recall the chameleon-like personalities of gures such as Lazarillo de
Tormes and Guzmán de Alfarache. On the other hand, however, they simultaneously outlie that
climate: both master and squire gradually develop true-to-life mnemonic faculties by virtue of which
they become somewhat self-aware, behave in accordance with a largely consistent sense of self,
act in such a way so as to pursue their personal desires and are psychologically affected by the
events that befall them and the people they meet — all of which capacities do not quite constitute
but, rather, anticipate the arrival of characters such as Jane Eyre, David Copper eld and Emma
Bovary. Thus, and as we have demonstrated above, it was not in the preference of one method of
characterisation — be it psychological realism, character function or psycho-physiological
verisimilitude — over all others that Cervantes set the stage for a revolutionary recasting of literary
character in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, as some critics have claimed. Rather, it
was in the manner in which he concurrently blended several of them together in order to foster the
development of two altogether novel cases in point of what could, should and would eventually be
expected of the literary character. With that in mind, it is only just that we analyse the respective
evolutions of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza from the variety of perspectives that such
multitudinous personalities demand, since it is precisely this multitudinousness of character that
affords them the universal and timeless appeal of which they continue to be possessed right into
the twenty- rst century.
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 Bibliograph

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Cervantes, Miguel de. 2016. El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, ed. by John Jay Allen,
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—— 2005. ‘Psychology and Function in the Comic Characters of Spanish Golden-Age Literature’,
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—— 2007. ‘La construcción de los personajes de don Quijote y Sancho’, in Cervantes y el Quijote,
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