A Tale of Two “mad” Men

A Tale of Two “Mad” Men

What is madness? Madness is defined as a mental illness that causes someone to exhibit behaviors that are not deemed “sane” to a normal man. So then, what is sanity? Sanity is defined as the ability to think and conduct oneself in a rational manner. The main characters in the both novels Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, both portray madness. However, it has been debated whether Hamlet and Don Quixote are really mad or are just portraying maddening behaviors. Their circumstances and surroundings make it easier to distinguish between both characters and their madness. Madness is a key theme in both novels and the stories would not be the same had these characters hadn’t been mad. However, there are some qualities of Hamlet that portray him not to be deemed mad. Based on the stories, Hamlet could’ve been deemed mad only because of his circumstances but Don Quixote was mad regardless of the circumstances.

Don Quixote goes on a series of journeys throughout the novel. He became deeply attracted by the chivalric literatures, watching the books into the fan and he want to have an oldest knight-errant life as his life. “He spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense.” (Don Quixote, P. 392) Therefore, he changed his name to be Don Quixote as the role of the book. He tried to ride an emaciated horse, found a rusty spear, and wear a tattered helmet, hired Sancho Panza as his servant and imagined a country woman from his Neighboring village as his lifetime dream woman, called Dulcinea del Toboso.

He claimed the windmills he saw were giants and needed to fight them in order to be chivalrous. Don Quixote really believes that these windmills are giants and states, “those with long arms some of which are as much as two leagues in length.” (Don Quixote, 413) This truly portrays the exact definition of madness. Someone sane would not believe that a windmill is not a giant nor would try and fight one. He also encounters a pack of sheep on his travels which he thought was an army and decided to fight them as well.

Hamlet arrives home to hear the horrible news of his father’s death. He as well as others sees the ghost of the king who was Hamlet’s father. The king’s