STUDENT ESSAY armour, the horse, the squire. He makes his ideal his reality. But for Don Quixote, his reality becomes his madness because his ideal remains an idea in his head, even when he believes he is living it out. We see this in a scene at one of the first inns at which he stays on his adventures. In this particular scene, he grasps a girl who has come to visit another visitor at the inn, all the while“ imagining” that he is being faithful to Dulcinea del Toboso( his“ beloved”); all the while conjuring up the ideal of his faithfulness to her in his mind. The ideal in his mind of being faithful is honourable. He should be faithful. Yet because his ideal remains in his head rather than becoming a true reality, it is meaningless, it is fruitless. His imagination, his vision is true, yet it is not reality. He is like the child who grows up to be an adult, but who continues to live under the table imagining it to be his house. Thus, Don Quixote’ s ideal becomes his fantasy wherein he lives, instead of the reality of his existence. He lives in his imagination instead of living out his imagination. Don Quixote is not made faithful by his imagination that he is faithful, even though his ideal of faithfulness is conceived in his mind. His problem, then, is that he lives in the fantasy that he actually is a good knight. And it is in believing that he is a good knight that he misses the opportunity to be a good knight. Don Quixote is so wrapped up in his imagination that he is a knight, he is so wrapped up in his ideal, that it doesn’ t become reality. He deceives himself. Some might say his ideal is fantastical, but in reality it is not. There is such a thing as chivalry, there is such a thing as faithfulness, and there is such a thing as being a good knight; there is more than the world and there is more to the world than meets the eye. There is an ideal, and it is a virtue to believe there is, and to want that ideal. But Don Quixote not only falls short of the ideal that he believes in, he also doesn’ t understand the ideal he wants. Nor indeed does he accomplish it because he is so busy fantasising that he IS in fact living up to his ideal. For this reason, Don Quixote is seen as mad throughout his adventures: he doesn’ t realise the truth of his ideal, the reality of his vision. In some sense, his ideal becomes his reality. But it becomes his reality in a way that it cannot become anothers. Others can play along, but they cannot see the windmills as giants. For they aren’ t giants. Indeed, being a knight
We are all knights of the highest king, the King of Kings, called to chivalry and nobility.
isn’ t about fighting windmills, imagining them to be giants. Yet, that is not to say that there aren’ t giants to be fought and conquered, nor is it to say that Don Quixote is wrong to want to fight them. He isn’ t. We are called to be knights, we are called to have an ideal of knighthood and chivalry. The trouble comes in the fact when our ideal is only our reality, for it is
then that our imagination becomes a kind of self-deception.
Imagination is not day-dreaming, nor yet is it a dream. For it is not something that stays in our minds, but rather it is a way of looking at the world. It is a way of seeing, and a way in which our seeing informs and shapes and molds our perspective of the world, renewing wonder and inspiring visions and ideals meant to be lived out in reality; a reality that is true and not deceived. Imagination is a vision of something further, something beyond our dreams. We are not called to live in our imaginations, just as we are not called to a world of fantasy. We are called to live them out in a true world— a world which is wonderful. Imagination gives us vision, it gives us ideal, it gives us wonder. We are supposed to become wiser because of imagination. Wiser and richer. For the world and that which is in it and beyond it and after it is better than we can ever imagine.
ZOE EDWARDS is an NSA student from Oxford, England.
SPRING 2017 17