Don Quixote vs. The Apostle
...empts to become a knight-errant, Don Quixote is really a parody: His suit of “armor” is actually composed of trash and garbage. His horse, Rocinante, is an old steed that is one deluded journey away from bereavement. Don Quixote's aspirations are as vast and abundant as his incapabilities and he spends most of his time thinking about how the account of his “famous exploits” will be documented and remembered rather than thinking about the consequences of his actions. The same goes towards Sonny. His quest for redemption completely takes over his level-headedness. He is so set on redeeming himself of all of his sins that he doesn’t realize that many of his actions are just causing him to commit more sins. Delusion is another major thematic concern of the novel and the film. The books of chivalry have left Don Quixote incapable of seeing "reality." Many of Quixote's deluded interpretations are rather ironic. Perhaps Quixote is merely innocent and naïve when he mistakes the two prostitutes for damsels. Later, Quixote will argue that the idealization of a person makes this person ideal. True to the chivalric standard, Quixote idealizes women with little justification or provocation. When Don Quixote believes that the inn is a "castle" and the swineherd is a "dwarf," he is not merely idealizing. These delusions are self-serving; the castle and the dwarf fit into the story that Don Quixote wishes were true. To this day, the word "quixotic" is used to describe a person who is " caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals” or someone who is “idealistic without regard to practicality. [1]" Certainly, this is true of Quixote when he explains that he did not bring any money or changes of clothes with him because he had "never read in the histories of knights-errant that any of them had ever carried [any]. [2]" Sonny Dewey, or Apostle E.F., is also deluded when it comes to his situation. He truly believes that because he is a preacher, and because he prays, and because he is doing all of these things to redeem himself, he is completely innocent and that his sinful actions were justified. In Don Quixote, deception behaves as a collaborator to delusion. Don Quixote suffers delusions of being a knight-errant. His family, friends, and acquaintances are constantly untruthful with Quixote throughout the entire story. Don Quixote’s niece, housekeeper, the barber, and the priest all conspire to destroy his library and all of his books, the foundation for all of Don Quixote’s fantasies and delusions. Sometimes, as we will see later, these deceptions are intended to mock and ridicule Quixote. Quixote's friends and loved ones ultimately squander substantial time, effort, and energy deceiving Quixote as a means of protecting our “hero” from himself. Deception plays a major role in “The Apostle” as well. Both Sonny and his wife, Jessie, deceive each other to shield each other ...