Man of La Mancha

“And all he reads oppresses him…fills him with indignation at man’s murderous ways toward man. He broods…and broods…and broods—and finally from so much brooding his brains dry up! He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity and conceives the strangest project ever imagined…to become a knight-errant and sally forth into the world to right all wrongs. No longer shall he be plain Alonso Quijana…but a dauntless knight known as Don Quixote de La Mancha!”

Cervantes’s origin story for Don Quixote introduces the idea of “insanity” using comedic elements, such as the notion of a brain drying up. He also carefully links this supposed insanity with a very understandable desire to oppose evil. This sets up the various themes of the musical and prepares him to push back against the idea that fighting for principles is a delusional endeavor, thereby challenging Perceptions of Mental Health.

“SANCHO. But it’s peculiar—to me this great highway to glory looks exactly like the road to El Toboso where you can buy chickens cheap.

DON QUIXOTE. Like beauty, my friend, ‘tis all in the eyes of the beholder. Only wait and thou shalt see amazing sights.”

This early exchange between knight and squire is an excellent indirect characterization of both men. Sancho is practical and curious, but willing to defer to his friend. Don Quixote is grandiose and uses archaic language like “thou” as part of his chivalric fantasy. His reference to the “eyes of the beholder” also foreshadows how people will gradually come to see the beauty of his dream.

“Love! One pair of arms is like another,

I don’t know why or who’s to blame,

I’ll go with you or with your brother,

It’s all the same, it’s all the same!”

The opening stanza of Aldonza’s introductory song establishes her as a realist who mocks the idea of romance and sees a relationship as only a transaction in which she is used. She maintains a self-aware independence but acknowledges that this “realistic” approach to life is bad when she wonders who is “to blame” for it.

“Sweet lady…fair virgin…I dare not gaze full upon thy countenance lest I be blinded by beauty. But I implore thee—speak once thy name.”

Don Quixote’s first encounter with Aldonza is humorously ironic, since the audience knows that she is far from a lady or virgin; in fact, she has just agreed to sleep with a muleteer for money and it is implied she has done so in the past. The contrast of his praise for her and the muleteers’ simple desire for sex highlights his idealism and how he will seek value where others do not see it.

“I have sought thee, sung thee, dreamed thee, Dulcinea!

Now I’ve found thee, and the world shall know thy glory.

Dulcinea…Dulcinea!”

Don Quixote’s love song to Aldonza invites her to assume a new identity represented by the new name of Dulcinea. His claim to have “sung” and “dreamed” Dulcinea literally describes how he may have been expressing his yearning for a lady in the past. On another level, it connects his vision of Dulcinea with the motif of dreaming a better world (See: Symbols & Motifs) and using The Transformative Power of Imagination to help create that world through storytelling.

“And now there appears on the scene a man of breeding…intelligence…logic. He is Antonia’s fiancé, Doctor Sansón Carrasco—Bachelor of Science—graduate of the University of Salamanca! A man who carries his own self-importance as though afraid of breaking it.”

Cervantes characterizes the story’s antagonist in terms of social class, credentials, prestige, and a scientific approach to the world. In doing so, especially with his drily humorous jibe at the doctor’s ego, he links a view of the world based on unimaginative reason with the privileged position of the elite.

“There is a certain embarrassment in having a madman in the family. In the eyes of others—”

Dr. Carrasco’s stated concern here emphasizes his obsession with what society thinks. In terms of Perceptions of Mental Health, he implies the key thing is not the particulars of any mental illness that Don Quixote might have, but rather the social perception of abnormal behavior as “mad.” The taint of being labeled “mad” is bad enough that society may even make family suffer, which is why Dr. Carrasco has become reluctant to marry Antonia.

“Facts are the enemy of truth.”

With this statement, Don Quixote rejects Dr. Carrasco’s attempt to reason with him about the existence of knights, giants, and magic. The two men have fundamentally opposed viewpoints of the world that lack enough common ground for them to even begin an argument. Thematically, Don Quixote is asserting that The Transformative Power of Imagination can trump the “facts” of how the world is now in favor of a deeper truth about its potential.

“Helmet of Mambrino,

There can be no

Hat like thee!

Thee and he now,

We can see, now

Will make golden

History!”

As Don Quixote sings “Golden Helmet of Mambrino” (See: Symbols & Motifs), the other cast join in with this final verse. Their words juxtapose the impossibility of a magic helmet with the claim that its wearer will in fact make history. This moment raises the question of whether buying into Don Quixote’s impossible view of the world may actually benefit others.

“THE PADRE. This is either the wisest madman or the maddest wise man in the world.

DR. CARRASCO. He is mad.”

Dr. Carrasco’s curt dismissal of the Padre’s musing shows how closed-minded and unimaginative he is in his Perceptions of Mental Health. The Padre, as a man caught in the middle of The Conflict Between Idealism and Realism, is torn between resisting Don Quixote’s delusions and being irresistibly drawn to them.

“There is no Dulcinea,

She’s made of flame and air,

And yet how lovely life would seem

If every man could weave a dream

To keep him from despair.

To each his Dulcinea

Though she’s naught but flame and air!”

The Padre’s song acknowledges the power of love to transform a person. He remains caught between idealism and realism, yet, though skeptical of any truth behind the dream of a perfect lover, he affirms that the alternative of embracing uncompromising realism leads to a life of despair. It is better to dream and to hope.

“Call nothing thy own except thy soul.

Love not what thou art, but only what thou may become.

Do not pursue pleasure, for thou may have the misfortune to overtake it.

Look always forward; in last year’s nest there are no birds this year.

Be just to all men. Be courteous to all women.

Live in the vision of that one for whom great deeds are done…she that is called Dulcinea.”

Don Quixote makes these resolutions during his vigil before his dubbing. He details his knightly ethos of justice, courtesy, idealism, and the pursuit of “great deeds,” reflecting the strong influence of chivalric romances on his idealistic conceptions of the world and his mission within it.

“ALDONZA. Your heart doesn’t know much about women!

DON QUIXOTE. It knows all, my lady. They are the soul of man…the radiance that lights his way. A woman is…glory!”

Don Quixote’s chivalric perspective on women is an old-fashioned view that emphasizes feminine purity and gives women a passive role that merely inspires masculine action. His emphasis on the glory and worth of women appeals to Aldonza, though she struggles to apply it to herself. Although she never directly challenges the knight’s subordination of women to a passive role, by the end of the play she will find a way to be “Dulcinea” in a more active way that Don Quixote has envisioned.

“This is my Quest, to follow that star,

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,

To fight for the right without question or pause,

To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause!

And I know, if I’ll only be true to this glorious quest,

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest.”

The message of the whole musical can be condensed into the anthem “The Impossible Dream” and the quest that it describes. It acknowledges that fighting for what is right will hurt and may end in failure, but asserts that doing so still makes for a more satisfying life than lacking the courage to fight at all, reflecting The Conflict Between Idealism and Realism.

“DON QUIXOTE. I owe something to my enemies.

ALDONZA. That account’s been paid!

DON QUIXOTE. No, my lady. I must raise them up and minister to their wounds.

ALDONA (aghast). What?

DON QUIXOTE. Nobility demands.”

This exchange makes clear that Don Quixote’s quest is more than an excuse to smash the heads of his enemies. While he will fight evil, he still feels compassion for his former enemies and wants to make them better. It is a Christ-like attitude of the highest idealism. Ironically, that extra kindness is what will allow the muleteers’ brutal assault on Aldonza.

“DON QUIXOTE (Raptly). Ah, Sancho, how I do envy my enemies.

SANCHO. Envy?

DON QUIXOTE. To think they know the healing touch of my lady Dulcinea! (An ecstatic sigh) Let this be proof to thee, Sancho. Nobility triumphs. Virtue always prevails.”

Man of La Mancha makes frequent use of dramatic irony. This exchange occurs directly after the muleteers have beat Aldonza, knocked her unconscious, and hauled her offstage. This is the opposite of the victory touted by Don Quixote and introduces the real cost of trying to follow “The Impossible Dream.”

“THE DUKE. What, Cervantes? Not afraid? (CERVANTES shakes his head dumbly. Mockingly) Where’s your courage? Is that in your imagination, too? (CERVANTES is retreating, THE DUKE following, inexorably) No escape, Cervantes. This is happening. Not to your brave man of La Mancha, but to you. Quick, Cervantes—call upon him. Let him shield you. Let him save you, if he can, from that!”

As the Inquisition comes (for another prisoner, as it turns out), the Duke challenges Cervantes’s idealism and imagination as powerless attempts to escape from reality rather than forces that can transform the world. The stage directions for Cervantes to show fear by retreating heightens the dramatic tension by giving power in this moment to his antagonist.

“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams—this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.”

Cervantes challenges the Duke’s assertion that poets and “madmen” are wrong because one must “come to terms with life as it is” (60). Cervantes flips the Duke’s argument on his head by asserting that life “as it is” is often senseless and brutal, thereby challenging the Duke’s Perceptions of Mental Health—what society calls “madness” may in fact be a rational response to injustice.

“Crime! You know the worst crime of all? Being born. For that you get punished your whole life!”

Aldonza’s bitter speech to Don Quixote rejects his idealism. At the same time, the depths of her statement’s cynicism undermines her case. If being alive is a punishment and nothing more than suffering, then there is no good reason to live. It is a choice between despair and hope.

“Look, Don Quixote! Look in the mirror of reality and behold things as they truly are. Look! What seest thou, Don Quixote? A gallant knight? Naught but an aging fool!”

Dr. Carrasco, in the persona of the Knight of Mirrors, confronts Don Quixote with his actual reflection to make him face reality. By showing the disconnect between Don Quixote’s dreams and the harsh facts, he temporarily shatters Don Quixote’s idealistic dream. This can be seen symbolically as Don Quixote confronting how society sees him. Ironically, reality here is represented by a two-dimensional image that exists apart from the actual person.

“Oh, I haven’t fought a windmill in a fortnight,

And the humble joys get duller every day.

Why, when I’m asleep a dragon with his fiery tongue a-waggin’

Whispers, ‘Sancho, won’t you please come out and play?’”

Sancho’s pleas with the unconscious Don Quixote are an example of his role as comic relief. This scene is also an important reminder in the midst of serious debate that the idealist’s life of imagination is simply more fun than drab realism.

“DON QUIXOTE. Is it so important?

ALDONZA. Everything. My whole life. You spoke to me and everything was—different!

DON QUIXOTE. I…spoke to you?

ALDONZA. And you looked at me! And you called me by another name! Dulcinea…Dulcinea…”

Aldonza’s pleading with the amnesiac Don Quixote proves that his life and ideals have made a difference to others even if he appears to be a personal failure. This is the moment in Aldonza’s character arc when she begins to accept the name Dulcinea and, with it, her own self-worth, reflecting The Transformative Power of Imagination.

“Don Quixote is not dead. Believe, Sancho. Believe.”

Aldonza’s statement after Don Quixote’s death upholds his claim from “The Impossible Dream” that a person’s struggle for the impossible can make the world better even after his death. She implies that his struggle will live on as she and Sancho take up his mission.