Examples Of Insanity In Don Quixote

What does insanity look like? Insanity is typically portrayed in movies and books as a person with a vividly active and occasionally violent mind. One example of this would be the Mad Hatter in the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland. Society has trained us to see a similar image when presented with the topic of insanity. This same portrayal can be seen in the book Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. On the other hand, insanity is not often actually presented in this way in reality. Most insanities are invisible and taken care of. This brings up the question: Is Don Quixote actually the insane character in the book, or is it Sancho Panza?

According to Psychology Today, insanity is defined as “a mental illness of such a severe nature that a person

Although Quixote clearly cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, Sancho also appears to have either dysthymia or psychotic depression in that his depression doesn’t disable him but keeps his mood low and his depression also occurs with psychosis in that he believes that there’s a possibility that Quixote will be able to get him a handsome reward, which is extremely unlikely. So all in all, the character who seems more “insane,” Quixote, is happier, and the character who seems more “sane,” Sancho, is depressed, proving possible insanity with his mental

If this were the case, Sancho would logically not have attempted to overcome any of the challenges presented to him since they didn’t really exist. Another argument would be Sancho isn’t depressed, he’s just worried about Quixote. Although this state of worry may be accurate, there is good evidence that Sancho isn’t just worried because when the duo reached Toboso, it “...raised Don Quijote’s spirits and lowered Sancho’s…” (Cervantes,