Humanities Homework Help

I’m working on a english multi-part question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Choose topic A or B

Topic A

Earlier this semester, we looked at Don Quixote as an example of the comic character, using the definition by Andrew Stott.  In the following excerpt from his book Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, Erich Auerbach argues that Quixote cannot be reduced to a simple comic formula:

With all his madness, Don Quixote preserves a natural dignity and superiority which his many miserable failures cannot harm.  He is not vulgar, as [certain] comic types normally are.  Actually he is not a ‘type’ at all in this sense, for on the whole he is not an automaton producing comic effects.  He even develops, and grows kinder and wiser while his madness persists. . . .As soon as his madness, that is, the idée fixe of knight-errantry, takes hold of him, he acts unwisely, he acts like an automaton in the manner of comic types. . . .There are levels of tone represented here which one is not accustomed to finding in purely comic contexts.  . . . [a] combination of intelligent moderation with absurd excesses results in a multiplicity which cannot be made to accord altogether with the purely comic.   (347)

Do you agree with Auerbach’s conclusion that Quixote is not the typical comic machine? Consider evidence from Book two such as his encounters with the Knight of the Wood, Diego and the lions. Is there a modern-day comic character that you think illustrates the depth Auerbach sees in Quixote? Explain.

Length: two well developed paragraphs, ending with a question for class discussion.

Topic B

Don Quixote’s descent into the cave in Book two places him in the ranks of other heroes of world literature such as Virgil’s Aeneas, who descend into the underworld and experience growth or enlightenment as a result.  Cervantes gives readers a more modern take on Don Quixote’s experience, presenting it as a dream. Quixote believes that he has spent three days with characters from the Charlemagne cycle of the chivalric romance; actually, after being lowered into the cave, he fell asleep for an hour and had a vivid dream.    Sigmund Freud argued that “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind,” a belief that led to the publication of his landmark work The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900.  He concluded that a dream is “the disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish.” Go to the Freud Museum of London’s website, the source of these quotes and of other interesting information about Freud’s view of dreams: https://www.freud.org.uk/education/resources/the-interpretation-of-dreams/    What conclusions might Freud reach about the significance of Quixote’s dream?  Use specific evidence from the novel. Do you agree with Freud that dreams are a road to the unconscious?