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Part 2, Chapter 46
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Don Quixote, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth and Lies
Literature, Realism, and Idealism
Madness and Sanity
Intention and Consequence
Self-Invention, Class Identity, and Social Change
Summary
Analysis
After Sancho deliberates in the courtroom, he is taken to a dining room in a beautiful palace. The table is laid with mouth-watering food, but a doctor at his side forbids him from eating anything except wafers and quince jelly. Sancho, a great lover of food, angrily orders the doctor to leave the room and let him be.
Sancho’s love of food and sleep has come to represent both his realism and his low social status. Now, the doctor is trying to make him suitable for governing by forcing on him a refined, upper-class palate.
Themes
Just then, a messenger arrives; he’s carrying a note from the Duke informing Sancho that enemies will soon attack the island and that Sancho’s life might be in danger. Just as Sancho is about to eat his dinner, a farmer arrives on a business matter. The man explains that one of his sons, who is “possessed by the devil,” fell in love with a strange-looking girl, and he has come to ask for a letter of recommendation and six hundred ducats (gold coins) for the dowry. Sancho angrily throws him out.
Sancho has not only learned to use deceit – he has become expert in recognizing it in others. In the absurd, overblown story, Sancho sees the Duke and Duchess’s trickery. He knows that people sometimes take him for a fool, but he won’t be taken advantage of.
Themes
