Symbols

The Windmills Thirty or forty windmills on a plain in La Mancha, which Don Quixote takes for giants and attacks with his lance couched, while Sancho Panza shouts behind him that they are windmills. It is the most cited adventure in the book and the one that became its... Mambrino's Helmet The brass basin of a village barber, which Don Quixote wins on the road and begins to call the helmet of Mambrino. The barber had put it on his head so the rain would not ruin his new hat, and cleaned as it was, it shone for half a league; the gentleman sees... The Cage The cage of latticed sticks in which the priest and the barber, aided by Don Fernando and his companions, the servants of Don Luis, the constables, and the innkeeper, take Don Quixote back to the village in an oxcart at the end of Part One. Disguised and... The Insula The insula that Don Quixote promises Sancho Panza at the start of the second sally, and that the squire keeps demanding through the whole book: first a plot of land to win at the point of a lance, then an office, that of governing better than those who... Montesinos's Cave Montesinos's cave, in La Mancha, where Don Quixote is lowered on a rope of nearly a hundred fathoms, while Sancho Panza and a cousin of the licentiate stay at the mouth counting what comes up. Down there, the gentleman says, he fell asleep, woke in a meadow,... The Inn The inn (the venta) where Don Quixote sees a castle. There are two at the start of the book: the one where he is dubbed a knight, on his first sally, and the one of the blanket, where he is received by Maritornes and where Sancho is tossed in a blanket, which... Books of Chivalry The chivalry books that Don Quixote reads until he loses his mind, the library of more than a hundred volumes that the priest and the barber largely condemn to the fire, and the code of conduct from which the gentleman takes everything he does: what a knight...