The Imagination of Don Quixote

            Throughout Cervantes' Don Quixote, there is a fear for Don Quixote's imagination. He desires to live his life out as a knight, much like those in his chivalric romances. However the society around him wishes for him to stay and conform to living in the reality shared by the majority. At first his imagination is viewed as a threat to others and himself and there are multiple attempts to diminish the threat of it, yet as his name and his reputation spreads so does the welcoming of his imagination because there is amusement and curiosity for his imagination. Ultimately his imagination has the power to shift the perspective of others, even if he was not able to live in his made up world for too long. .
             When Don Quixote first emerges as a knight seeking adventures he is viewed as a threat to society. In his first encounter as a knight he comes across an innkeeper who at first glance was "intimidated" (33), but not because he Don Quixote appeared as strong, authoritative knight but because he was perceived as "ungainly" (33). The inn keeper based his his interaction on the fact that Don Quixote appeared to be unstable mentally and physically. Because of this the innkeeper took even more precaution when it came to his guest and warned them that his guest was a madman (38). Clearly there is a mistrust in the actions of Don Quixote who believes he is a knight and that belief is not shared but the innkeeper and the others. There is also precaution in the form that those who are familiar to Don Quixote consider his state of mind. As the priest, the barber, the housemaid, and Don Quixote's niece are burning his books they carefully consider which ones to burn. AtT first the priest is allowing of poetry books to remain but the niece convinces him otherwise because they could make Don Quixote "make him believe he is a shepherd" (?). They truly believe his mind is incapable of conforming to their set norms and expectations.