Story Within a Story

A story told, staged, or written within the work itself, which mirrors or comments on the main story.

In Don Quixote

turning the Arab's words into Castilian on the spot, he said that it read: History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, Arab historian.

The title read by the Moor frames the history of Don Quixote within another, that of the notebook found in Toledo, so that everything that follows is told as the translation of an Arab historian.

Part One: The Gentleman and the Windmills, the narrator, telling what the Moor read in the notebook found in Toledo

if you wish, gentlemen, that I tell you in few words the immensity of my misfortunes, you must promise me that you will interrupt the thread of my sad story with no question or anything else; for at the point where you do so, there it will end, what I am telling.

Part One: The Galley Slaves and the Sierra, Cardenio, the Ragged One of the Bad Figure, before telling his story

I saw that I was not asleep, but truly awake [...] they assured me that I was then, there, the one I am here now.

Part Two: Montesinos and the Puppet Show, Don Quixote, to his cousin and to Sancho, telling what he saw in the cave

for that very reason, replied Don Quixote, I will not set foot in Zaragoza, and thus I will bring out into the public square of the world the lie of that modern historian, and people will see that I am not the Don Quixote he says I am.

Part Two: Ricote, Roque, and Barcelona, Don Quixote, at the inn, to Don Juan and Don Jerónimo