Don Quixote: Similes 7 key examples

The novel contains countless allusions to popular literature of Cervantes’s day, reflecting Don Quixote’s tendency to turn to fiction, especially stories concerning knights and heroes, as a guide for his own conduct. In one notable example, Don Quixote alludes to Carloto, son of the emperor Charlemagne in many legends, after he is beaten by a traveling merchant: 

Finding, then, that he couldn’t move, it occurred to him to resort to his usual remedy, which was to think about some passage from his books; and his madness brought to his memory the episode from the story of Baldwin and the Marquis of Mantua in which Carloto leaves Baldwin wounded in the forest, a tale known to every little boy, not unfamiliar to youths, celebrated and even believed by old men [...] 

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After Don Quixote,  injured and exhausted, returns from his first attempt to seek adventure, his family and loved ones gather together in his home to care for him and find a solution to his apparent “madness.” After agreeing that his books have had a negative effect on his mental health, they decide to burn them. Don Quixote’s niece uses a simile that compares the books to “heretics” and the priest, following from her rhetoric, uses a series of metaphors drawn from religion and law: 

‘I’m the one to blame for it all, not telling you gentlemen about my uncle’s madness so you could have done something about it and burned those unchristian books of his before it came to all this; he’s got lots and lots of them, and they do deserve to be put to the flames, like heretics.’ 

‘I agree with that,’ said the priest, ‘and I swear that before another day has passed they’ll be put on public trial and condemned to the flames so that they can’t make anyone reading them do what my friend must have done.’

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In an ironic simile, the narrator compares Sancho Panza to a “patriarch” when he and Don Quixote first set off on their adventure: 

Don Quixote stocked up with shirts and everything else he could, following the advice that the innkeeper had given him; and [...] without Panza saying goodbye to his wife and children, or Don Quixote to his housekeeper and niece, they left the village unseen one night, and by daybreak they’d ridden so far they felt certain no one would be able to find them however hard he looked. Sancho Panza rode his ass like a patriarch, complete with saddle-bags and leather bottle, longing to be the governor of the island his master had promised him.

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Cervantes employs verbal irony and a simile in a scene in which Don Quixote forbids Sanch Panzo from aiding him if he is engaged in combat with another knight, as he claims that it is forbidden in the rules of chivalry for a commoner to attack a knight: 

‘You can be sure, sir,’ replied Sancho, ‘of being fully obeyed there [...] Though I do have to say that when it comes to defending myself I’m not going to take much notice of those there laws of yours, because divine and human justice both let anyone defend himself against attack.’ 

‘I do not disagree in the slightest,’ replied Don Quixote, ‘but as regards assisting me against knights, you must keep your natural impetuosity under control.’ 

‘I’ll do that all right,’ replied Sancho. ‘I’ll keep that particular promise as strictly as the Sabbath.’

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After rejecting his friend Anselmo’s plan to test his wife’s virtue, Lotario uses a series of similes and metaphors to describe female virtue: 

The pure, chaste woman is an ermine, and the virtue of chastity is whiter and purer than snow, and the man who wants her not to lose it, but on the contrary to keep and preserve it, shouldn’t do as huntsmen do with ermine [...] A good woman is also like a mirror of clear, shining glass, but any breath that touches this mirror will cloud and dim it. She should be treated like a holy relic, adored but not touched. She should be guarded and prized like a beautiful garden full of roses and other flowers [...]

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While Don Quixote is fighting a goatherd in an inn, they are interrupted by the sound of trumpets. Putting a temporary pause on their fight, Quixote goes outside and sees a group of penitents carrying an image of the Virgin Mary and praying for rain. Mistaking the image for that of a real woman and believing that she has been kidnapped, Quixote threatens the penitents, and when they respond with laughter, the narrator uses a simile that compares their laughter to gunpowder: 

‘I shall say it all in one word,’ replied Don Quixote, ‘and it is this: you must at this very instant set free that beautiful lady, whose tears and sorrowful face are clear proof that you are bearing her off against her will and that you have done her some very great mischief’ [...] These words made all those who heard them realize that Don Quixote must be some madman, and they burst into hearty laughter, which was like pouring gunpowder on to the fire of Don Quixote’s wrath: without another word he drew his sword and charged at the platform.

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In a climactic moment in the novel, a man identifying himself only as the Knight of the White Moon challenges Quixote to a duel. If Quixote loses, he must return home and give up adventuring for a year. With his faster horse, the Knight of the White Moon, later identified as the student Sansón Carrasco, swiftly knocks Quixote off Rocinante, leaving him in a weakend state. Describing Sancho's disillusionment, the narrator uses a simile that compares their shared hopes and dreams to smoke: 

Don Quixote was hauled to his feet and his face was uncovered, colourless and sweating. Rocinante was in such a sorry state that he couldn’t move. Sancho, in the depths of despondency, had no idea what to say or do: he fancied it was all a dream or something worked by magic. Here was his master, defeated and forbidden to take up arms for a whole year; and he saw the light of the glory of his master’s exploits dimmed, all the hopes of his latest promises wafted away like smoke before the wind.

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