SOURCE: Allen, John J. “The Narrators, the Reader, and Don Quixote” and “The Governorship of Sancho Panza and Don Quixote's Chivalric Career.” In Don Quixote: Hero or Fool?, Part II, pp. 3-15; 19-36. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1979.

In the following essay, Allen examines the relationship between the reader and narrator in Don Quixote.

The relationships established at the outset of Don Quixote between the narrator, the reader, and the protagonist are not difficult to characterize. The narrator's humility, openness, and lack of pretensions seem genuine. The ingratiating and flattering invitation to shared irony is very attractive to the reader, and the relationship quickly becomes quite close (“dearest reader,” “gentle reader”).¹ We easily and naturally adopt the attitude of ironic detachment held by Don Quixote's “step-father”—a term which suggests just the right mixture of distance and control. But these relationships change significantly in the course of Don...