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Part 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—The Narrator :
The story of Don Quixote’s exploits is embedded within a broader frame story concerning the narrator’s attempts to complete the story despite a spotty historical record. Though Don Quixote is a fictional character, Cervantes presents him within the novel as a real figure about whom the narrator conducts research. At various points, the narrator pauses the tale and instead recounts his own efforts to fill in the gaps. Just before Don Quixote and the Basque begin their climactic battle, for example, the narrator notes that:
So Don Quixote was advancing [...] and the Basque was awaiting him with his sword also aloft [...] and all the bystanders were terrified and wondering what was going to be the outcome [...] But the trouble is that at this very point the author of this history leaves the battle unfinished, excusing himself on the ground that he hasn’t found anything more written about these exploits of Don Quixote than what he has narrated. It is true, though, that the second author of this work refused to believe that such a fascinating history had been abandoned to the laws of oblivion [...]
Here, the narrator leaves the story on a cliffhanger, as the previous author of Don Quixote’s tale has left the battle “unfinished” on the basis that he “hasn’t found anything more written about these exploits of Don Quixote.” The narrator, then, follows the previous writer, later identified as the fictional Cide Hamete Benengeli, in acknowledging a gap in the historical record. Because he “refused to believe” that this “fascinating story” had been left “abandoned” by chroniclers, he promises to track additional manuscripts, later finding further writing by Benengeli, a Moor living in Spain, concerning Quixote in the Spanish city of Toledo. This frame story blurs the lines between fiction and reality, treating Don Quixote as a real historical figure who has been the subject of previous authors’ writings.
Related Themes:
