Five - Don Quixote

In this chapter, I felt as though I was drawing a bit of a parallel between Robert Cohn and everyone's favorite Spanish windmill slayer, The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha. One should not be allowed to switch between English and Spanish that many times within a name, but that's beside the point. Anyway, the reason I say the two are kind of similar is that whole concept of outdated knightly chivalry. Cohn asks Jake about the Lady Brett Ashley, and when Jake only answers with negative qualities, "She's a drunk...She's [married someone she didn't love] twice..." (p. 46-47), Cohn gets all worked up in a tizzy, saying "I didn't ask you to insult her" (p. 47). He seems to cling to that old-timey chivalrous notion that women belong on pedestals. Señor Quixote also gets extremely worked up when some traders from Toledo "insult" his beloved Dulcinea, who he also seems to have "placed on a pedestal." It is in fact Cohn's outdated sense of values and chivalry that seems to set him apart from the rest of the Lost Generation depicted in this novel, and this old-fashioned behavior gives the other members of the Barnes gang only more ammunition to ridicule the poor fellow who was set apart from the very beginning.

This is Don Quixote. He respects women, but hates windmills.