Summary and Analysis
Part 2:
Chapter V
Summary
Cervantes intrudes once more, saying that this chapter is apocryphal because it shows Sancho speaking with an understanding and elegance foreign to his peasant upbringing. The squire tells his wife that he is glad to seek for adventures because he shall soon be rewarded with the government of an island. Teresa is afraid that she and her daughter would never be happy or comfortable in the role of finely-costumed gentlewomen, and the people would laugh at their rusticity. Sancho insists that respect is paid to persons of wealth and fine appearance with no heed to former circumstances. "All those things which we see before our eyes do appear, hold, and exist in our memories much better and with greater stress than things past," he says. Teresa, at last, asks that Sancho send for his son and train him to be a gentleman as soon as he gains his position, but the daughter must try to avoid the false royalty as long as possible.
Analysis
Part Two also introduces a Sancho who amazes his master with his intelligent observations and aptness for the profession of knight-errantry even as he amazes his creator, for Cervantes insists that Sancho's awakened intellect must be "apocryphal." The squire, however, is a quick student of his master and shows his wife that he is imbued with Don Quixote's ambition. He of the "let not the cobbler look beyond his last" and "every sheep to her mate" now wishes that the future Panzas of the world be counts and countesses. Teresa, on the other hand, prefers the status quo, looking forward only to sufficient food and clothing for her family.