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After finding inspiration in books about knights and heroes, Don Quixote, a middle-aged commoner from Spain forsakes his possessions to pursue a life of chivalry and great deeds. Don Quixote convinces himself and his sidekick Sancho Panza that he is knight on a mission to save a princess named Dulcinea del Toboso.

Don Quixote’s disillusions are painfully obvious to those around him, but he remains steadfast in his
beliefs. In his mind, Don Quixote is a savior of the helpless, a defender of the weak, and a foe to evil. While his status in the world is low as seen by everyone else, he believes he is of great importance.

The novel, published in 1605, was one of the first to poke fun of social standings. The author Cervantes brings to light the absurdity of class and shows us that reality is merely a state of mind. Don Quixote cracked the door for other novels to explore telling the stories of regular people and not just the rich or important. The work broke new ground for what the novel was to become. While the author Cervantes still used the familiar tropes of romance and the hero’s quest, the novel expanded into the realms of strange, everyday people. Walter D. Mignolo went so far as to say “Don Quixote was to Europe what the
pyramids were to the Egyptians” in his essay De-linking: Don Quixote, Globalization and the Colonies. He went on to state that the novel expressed “the dichotomy between the accumulation of money and the
accumulation of meaning that put Western Europe at the center of global capitalism and global epistemology” (Mignolo, pg.7).