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Don Quixote

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Don Quixote Alonso Quijano is the gentleman of a village in La Mancha whose name the narrator does not care to recall: he is about fifty, thin, an early riser and fond of hunting, lives with a housekeeper of more than forty, a niece of under twenty-one, and a young man... Sancho Panza Sancho Panza is Don Quixote's farmer neighbor: poor, with a wife and children, an honest man only insofar as the title fits someone who is poor and not overly bright, as the narrator says when he enters (ch. VII of Part One). He leaves home at night, without... Dulcinea del Toboso Dulcinea del Toboso is Don Quixote's lady and the only central figure of the book who never appears on stage as herself. She is born in ch. I of Part One as Aldonza Lorenzo, a farm girl from a neighboring village who may not even have known of the passion,... Sansón Carrasco Sansón Carrasco is the bachelor of Salamanca from Don Quixote's village: described in ch. III of Part Two as short of body and a great joker, of sallow complexion and very good understanding, about twenty-four years old, with a round face, a flat nose, and a... Cide Hamete Benengeli Cide Hamete Benengeli is the Arab historian to whom the book attributes the history of Don Quixote, and the only narrator of the novel who has a name. He is born in ch. IX of Part One, when the narrator, who had been left without a source in the middle of a... Cardenio Cardenio is the young Andalusian of good lineage whom Don Quixote and Sancho meet in the Sierra Morena as a naked man, with a black beard and torn tawny velvet breeches, leaping from rock to rock (ch. XXIII of Part One). The book calls him the Ragged One, or... Dorothea Dorothea is the daughter of wealthy farmers from Andalusia, pure Old Christians, vassals of a duke, who raised her as the mirror in which they saw themselves and made her steward of the whole estate (ch. XXVIII of Part One). She appears in the Sierra Morena... The Priest and the Barber The priest and the barber are the two friends of Don Quixote in the village: Father Pero Pérez, educated at Sigüenza, and Master Nicolás, the barber. They appear together from beginning to end, so that the book treats them as a single figure with two faces:... Marcela Marcela is the shepherdess the goatherds talk about in chapter XII of Part One: the daughter of the farmer Guillermo, orphaned of both parents, wealthy, raised with great modesty by a priest uncle who would not marry her off without her consent. One day she... The Captive The Captive is the captain who arrives at the inn in chapter XXXVII of Part One with a veiled Moorish woman, Zoraida, and who, at the request of Don Fernando and of those who heard the gentleman discourse on arms and letters, tells his own life as one who... Teresa Panza Teresa Panza is the wife of Sancho Panza, a farmer's wife from a village in La Mancha, mother of Mari Sancha, also called Sanchica, and of a son whom Teresa wants to send with his father so that he learns to govern from the start (chapter V of Part Two). In... The Duke and Duchess The Duke and Duchess are the couple of great lords who receive Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in Part Two and host them for more than twenty chapters at their pleasure house, which the gentleman takes for a castle (chapter XXX of Part Two, chapter XXXI of Part... Ginés de Pasamonte Ginés de Pasamonte is the last of the chain of galley slaves whom Don Quixote frees in Part One, and the same man who, in Part Two, presents himself as Master Pedro, the puppeteer of a fortune-telling monkey and of a puppet show of Melisendra. In 1605 he is a... Altisidora Altisidora is the maiden of the dukes' castle who, in Part Two, pretends to fall in love with Don Quixote. She is one of the ladies of the house and plays a part the dukes gave her: that of the spurned maiden of a chivalric romance, who loves the knight more...

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