Acceso usuarios
Michael D. Hasbrouck
Critics have proposed various explanations of Don Quixote's madness, such as an excess of melancholy or of choler. I argue in this paper that demoniacal possession is another possibility. In Don Quixote the protagonist's behavior often suggests possession by the devil; in fact other characters often confuse Don Quixote with the devil. I interpret an episode in II, 62 in which Don Quixote exclaims: ¿Fugite, partes adversae!¿ as a sort of exorcism; and I also examine the similarities between Don Quixote's trampling by swine (II, 68) and the most famous exorcism in the Bible.
