For the first part of the September 17 reading group summary, please visit this link.
In looking at chapter 14 and Marcela’s defense of her character, we considered the question: Is Don Quixote a feminist?
If you listen to the rumors spread by Ambrosio and others in chapter 13, Marcela seems to be a monster. She is accused of causing the death of Grisóstomo, a hopeful lover. According to Ambrosio, Grisóstomo was the epitome of masculinity: “unique in intelligence, unequaled in courtesy, inimitable in gallantry . . .” and the list goes on (p. 93). Now Grisóstomo is dead:
He loved deeply and was rejected; he adored and was scorned; he pleaded with a wild beast, importuned a piece of marble, pursued the wind, shouted in the desert, served ingratitude, and his reward was to fall victim to death in the middle of his life, which was ended by a shepherdess whom he attempted to immortalize so that she would live on in memory. (p. 93)
When we meet Marcela, she is more than capable of speaking for herself. Marcela chooses the life of a shepherdess because she likes to be alone. She doesn’t want a husband.
According to what I have heard, true love is not divided and must be voluntary, not forced. If this is true, as I believe it is, why do you want to force me to surrender my will, obliged to do so simply because you say your love me? (p. 99)
When she has spoken her piece she turns to leave, “not waiting to hear any response” (p. 100). Then our Knight of the Sorrowful Face springs into action.
Don Quixote thought it an appropriate time to put his chivalry into practice by coming to the aid of a maiden in distress, and he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, and in a loud, clear voice he said:
“Let no person, whatever his circumstance or condition, dare to follow the beautiful Marcela lest he fall victim to my fury and outrage. She has shown with clear and sufficient reasons that she bears little or no blame in the death of Grisóstomo, and she has also shown how far she is from acquiescing to the desires of any who love her, and therefore it is just that rather than being followed and persecuted, she should be honored and esteemed by all good people in the world, for she has shown herself to be the only woman in it who lives with so virtuous a desire.” (101)
When I first read this, I was on board with Don Quixote’s defense. “Finally someone who is listening to Marcela!” I thought. But perhaps I was too hasty, or too naive. It was suggested in our group that perhaps Don Quixote didn’t get it at all. In chapter 15 he even tries to seek her out. Perhaps, Don Quixote is a mansplainer. Here is the Oxford Dictionaries online entry:
Marcela didn’t need anyone to stand up for her. She had already left the gathering. As someone in our group pointed out, to Don Quixote, Marcela is a damsel in distress. In his mind, she needs him. He fits Rebecca Solnit’s description of a mansplainer to a T: “Mansplaining is not a universal flaw of the gender, just the intersection between overconfidence and cluelessness where some portion of that gender gets stuck.” Both “overconfidence” and “cluelessness” seem to me to be descriptive of Don Quixote.
Ambrosio doesn’t seem to get it either. After Marcela leaves, he says he still plans to have a tombstone made with the lines:
The pitiless hand
of cruel beauty killed him,
extending the power
of love’s tyranny. (p. 101)
According to others in our group, a more charitable reading of the Knight of the Sorrowful Face might be available to us. Perhaps Don Quixote sees something of himself in Marcela. While Don Quixote sets out to make himself a knight errant, Marcela rejects her family’s wealth and “dresses up like a shepherdess and wanders around the wild, empty places” (p. 81). He goes against the grain in saying that Marcela is not to blame. Sensing a similarity between them in having adopted a persona, perhaps Don Quixote projects his own needs onto her. He stands up for Marcela as he wants to be recognized as an illustrious knight errant.
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