Examples Of Fallacies In Don Quixote

Shepherding Fallacies

In Cervantes’s novel, Don Quixote, the knight Don Quixote de la Mancha and his squire Sancho Panza accompany a group of shepherds to a funeral. A fellow shepherd by the name of Grisóstomo passed away from a broken heart because his love for the Marcela was unrequited. Don Quixote hears that the shepherds admire and scorn Marcela’s beauty and they compare it to the plague because it brings men to despair. On the funeral day, Marcela addresses the shepherds for blaming her for Grisóstomo’s death and gives Don Quixote more insight to the situation. According to Being Logical, fallacies in an argument occur when structural and/or logical mistakes are present. Although neither side follows the forms present in Being Logical

and commit formal fallacies, Marcela’s arguments reveal informal fallacies in the arguments made by the shepherds.
By focusing solely on Marcela’s beauty, the shepherds’ first and second fallacies are ad hominem and reductionism. Before Marcela has a chance to present her argument, one of the shepherds verbally attacks her and tries to make her look more unfavorable to the audience. This ad hominem fallacy places an unfair advantage on Marcela until she begins to present her arguments without interruption. The shepherds are aware that Marcela chose to become a shepherdess instead of a married woman, but they still berate her for being beautiful and rejecting their advances. Marcela refutes by saying “as the viper is not to be blamed for the deadly poison that it bears, since that is a gift of nature, so I do not deserve to be reprehended for my comeliness of form” (Cervantes 445). The shepherds are attacking Marcela on physical characteristics she has no control of. The only control Marcela has is “to live freely” and to “choose the solitude of the fields” where she can “communicate her thoughts and lend them of her beauty” (Cervantes 445). By targeting one aspect of Marcela instead of the whole, the shepherds are guilty of reductionism. They only see a beautiful woman to court rather than a woman who has chosen to remain unwedded. She is telling them that her intelligence is only acknowledged by nature and she takes care of nature in return. She wants the shepherds to realize that her life choice is honorable, instead, of calling her a basilisk that lures men to their demise. Marcela wishes to be seen as a fellow shepherd and converse among them, but they all misinterpret her cordial behavior.
The shepherds fall into their third fallacy by believing Marcela allowed Grisóstomo to romance her.

Marcela tells the shepherds that their desire for her gives them hope when she gives “none to Grisóstomo or any other, and of none of them can it be said that she killed them with her cruelty, for it was rather their own obstinacy that is to blame” (Cervantes 445). Their argument has a democratic fallacy because they support their point with an opinion a majority of them believe. They blame Marcela for Grisóstomo’s death because they think she gave him false hope and stripped it away from him. Marcela explains that they could blame her for that if it were true, but “the thing that killed Grisóstomo was his impatience and the impetuosity of his desire, so why blame her modest conduct and retiring life” (Cervantes 446). The shepherds are too enamored and blinded by her beauty that they don’t listen to her. They mistake her company for an opportunity to court her when she states countless times that she will never love a man. She says the shepherds only have themselves to blame for broken hearts because their desire defeats their logic. At the end of her speech, the shepherds continue to defend their pursuit of her by the actions they

take.
The shepherds commit another form of reductionism and their fourth fallacy at the end of Marcela's speech. Marcela clarifies that her defense against Grisóstomo’s death “applies to each and every one of those who would have her for their own, and let it be understood from now on that if any die on account of her, he is not to be regarded as an unfortunate victim of jealousy" (Cervantes 446). Marcela summarizes her disinterest in men and her innocence in the matter without insulting the shepherds. She refutes their arguments with dignity and leaves them to digest her words. Some of the shepherds, however, can't respect her desires and “were of a mind to follow her, taking no heed of the plainly worded warning they had just had from her lips” (Cervantes 446). By continuing to pursue her, they ignore her wit and remain cemented in their old way of thinking. They see Marcela as a fire to tame and don’t consider the consequences she laid out for them. As the funeral proceeds, the shepherds use tears as a diversionary tactic to gain sympathy and support for their argument. Marcela’s words are forgotten completely when they are burying Grisóstomo together and the arguments she made are going to be ignored while they are grieving. Marcela’s beauty and Grisóstomo’s funeral work against her because they remind the shepherds that it is not in their best interest to sympathize with her. They are mesmerized by her intelligence, but their desire doesn’t allow them to see past a comely face and they alienate Marcela from the rest of the shepherds.
After hearing Marcela’s speech, Don Quixote threatens any shepherd that dares to bother her because he realizes that she is blameless.

He weighs both arguments against the other and despite the formal fallacies in both, he realizes that the shepherds’ arguments contain more informal fallacies than Marcela’s. Their defense for pursuing and despising Marcela contains the ad hominem fallacy, reductionism, the democratic fallacy, and tears as a diversionary tactic. By critiquing her decision to remain spouseless and then verbally calling her names, the shepherds gain an unfair advantage because they shape who Marcela is for the audience before she is introduced. They reduce her to a beautiful woman who lures men and sends them to die of a broken heart. Marcela states that she did not choose to be beautiful and cannot be held responsible for it. She chose to remain unbound to any and if the shepherds are going to hold her accountable for that then they need to realize she is another person and shepherd like them. The shepherds conform to the idea that she gives men hope that they have a chance of claiming her. Marcela says that the shepherds are blinded by their desire for her that they fail to realize she is not giving them an opportunity to court her. The shepherds are mesmerized by her intelligence, but some refuse to respect her wishes by continuing to pursue her. Despite her warnings, their perception of her is still veiled by lust and their attention is diverted back to

the loss of Grisóstomo. Marcela fails to gain the overall sympathy of the shepherds because her arguments are forgotten and overruled by the shepherds’ grieving. By shepherding fallacies in their arguments, the shepherds will continue to fall in love with the appearance of a woman who wishes to tend to a different flock.