Madness and sanity seem to exist at opposite poles of a binary; one is defined by the absence of the other. However, this binary, although present in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, is problematic. The protagonists - who are supposed to represent the extreme madman - straddle the line between sanity and madness, and therefore refuse to be so easily classified. Although the authors demonstrate that such a binary cannot explain complex human character, they extend their argument one step further: madness is not an agent that causes irrational human behavior, but a description of such behavior. One is not irrational because he is crazy; one is considered crazy by society because he behaves irrationally. To understand why a certain behavior occurs, you need to consider each strand of the web of causes that shape identity and influence action. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayCervantes encourages the reader to conclude that Don Quixote is undoubtedly mad. The reader is easily convinced because the third narrator is presented as objective and omniscient. The narrator describes Don Quixote as having "completely destroyed his reason" and had fallen "into the strangest fantasy that a madman ever had in the world" (Cervantes 33). If Quixote represents the crazy end of the binary, the narrator corresponds to the opposite pole. Therefore, the reader himself, who is aligned with the narrator, finds his position next to the narrator on one extreme. Sancho Panza, who serves as the reader's voice, further convinces the reader that Don Quixote is completely delusional. It expresses the reader's disbelief and indignation that Don Quixote allows his fantasies to have such disastrous effects in the real world. For example, when Don Quixote states that he will avenge "the outrage they did to Rocinante," Sancho responds skeptically, "How on earth can we avenge ourselves when there are more than twenty of us and we are only two?" (Cervantes 112). Sancho humbly expresses his disbelief again and again. Responding to a typical adventure with personal injury, Sancho says, “I think that the creatures who amused themselves at my expense were not ghosts or enchanted, as Your Lordship says, but men of flesh and blood like us” (Cervantes 133). The narrator also makes a clear distinction between what Don Quixote imagines and what is real. Even the clearest situations "[do] not prevent Don Quixote from imagining what [is] neither visible nor existent" (Cervantes 135). The simple binary that initially classifies both Quixote and Sancho, however, does not exist for long; Cervantes begins to explore how madness and sanity can overlap. It becomes increasingly clear that Don Quixote's madness is not perfect; the reader catches Don Quixote in moments of perfect lucidity, during which he seems entirely capable of rational thought. Quixote manages to discuss politics with the barber's priest "with such intelligence? that the two examiners had no doubt that he was completely recovered and in full possession of his senses" (Cervantes 472). He becomes increasingly able to recognize the limits of his imagination and increasingly willing to abandon the fantasy once he begins to push beyond these limits. When Quixote mistakes a church for Dulcinea's palace, for example, he realizes "immediately that the building was not a royal castle, but the parish church of the place" (Cervantes 521). Likewise, Sancho Panza - and other characters who represent reason - show madness amidst his rationality. Thereader doubts exactly how reasonable Sancho can actually be if he continues as Quixote's squire despite recognizing the folly of Quixote's actions. He does this because he believes that "a similar adventure could happen to him, he would conquer in the blink of an eye some island, of which [he would be appointed] governor" (Cervantes 66). The canon later notes this contradiction as it marvels "at Sancho's foolishness in desiring so ardently the courtship his master had promised him" (Cervantes 443). The strange concomitance of madness and sanity in these characters is remarkably similar. The priest and the barber, for example, compare the madness of these two characters, commenting that "the two seem to have been cast in a mould, and the madness of the master would not be worth a penny without the foolishness of the squire" (Cervantes 482). By demonstrating how madness and sanity can coexist, Cervantes begins to break the binary originally put in place. The reader is given further reason to suspect Don Quixote's madness there appears to be a certain order and sense to his madness, described by the narrator as "a well-reasoned foolishness" (Cervantes 443). - can comment rationally on almost any other issue. For example, when Quixote is returned home for rehabilitation, the canon notes that he has shown "excellent sense in his conversation and his answers" and "[loses] his temper only in matters of chivalry" (Cervantes 435). Once inside the imaginary chivalric world he has created for himself, however, Quixote's behavior and reasoning are consistent and rational. He carefully follows the guidelines outlined by the canon of chivalric literature with which he is so familiar. For example, "Don Quixote [often] sleeps but [thinks] of his Lady Dulcinea, to conform to what [he has] read in his books about knights who spend many sleepless knights in the woods and desert dwelling on the memory of their ladies" (Cervantes 70). All his actions are completely consistent with what is expected of a knight errant. Quixote clearly has not lost the ability to reason, as such an inability would be universally present. Citing "madness" as the reason why Don Quixote suddenly transformed into a knight errant becomes an increasingly less satisfactory explanation for his behavior. If not, it is not because he is mad, the curious reader will ask, because Quixote behaves in a completely delusional way. Cervantes urges the reader to make a critical shift in his reasoning; urges the reader to consider madness not as a cause of irrational behavior, but rather as a description of it. It is important to consider the function performed by Quixote's behavior. What need does he satisfy Quixote, before becoming a knight errant, led a comfortable but boring life, with a "habitual diet [on which] he spent three-quarters of his income" and essentially "nothing else to do [except give] himself up to reading books about the knight errant" (Cervantes 31). It is no wonder that he derived so much pleasure from reading chivalric romances, which allowed him to vicariously experience honor, victory, and true love. If one enjoys something vicariously, it is reasonable to assume that one might take pleasure in experiencing it in real life. This would explain why Quixote "hurried to put his desires into action, driven to do so by the thought of the loss the world suffered through his delay, seeing the grievances there were to be redressed, the wrongs to be corrected, the injuries to be repaired " (Cervantes 33 -35). Becoming a knight errant, therefore, responded to Quixote's thirst for adventure, honor, fame, and purpose. We can see that Sancho does tooallows one to delude oneself in order to satisfy a specific need: to provide for the family and raise one's social status. If madness is not the cause of a certain behavior but a description of it, the reader must ask himself by what criteria the behavior is judged and who determines these criteria. Quixote's behavior is considered insane because he responds to a world that is inconsistent with what most people see as reality. It is a shame for Don Quixote that he cannot be a true knight. AssistantDon Quixote creates neither his own identity nor his purpose: he has adopted the identity of a knight errant, as defined by his chivalric romances, and transforms everyday situations into adventures and conquests so that he has something to do, a purpose. In the final pages of Don Quixote, Cervantes supports his thesis that behavior and therefore identity change as our internal needs change. When Quixote has been essentially defeated as a knight errant - and is forced to remain in the village for a year - he decides to become a shepherd, to "give play to [his imagination] and devise the pattern of pastoral life [he is] intended to follow" that “could give free rein to his amorous thoughts, occupying himself in that pastoral and virtuous vocation” (Cervantes 930). But this need changes abruptly once again when Quixote "a fever takes hold of him" and sends him to his deathbed (Cervantes 935). if it may seem to the reader that he has finally surrendered to reality and returned to his true self, Cervantes warns us that something more may be happening. Just as Quixote renounces "those detestable books of chivalry," he laments that his Impending death "leaves him no time to make amends by reading other [religious] books that might enlighten [his] soul" (Cervantes 35). . This aligns his conversion to Christianity with his conversion to the knight errant; Christianity is simply another identity that can be worn like a cloak. Cervantes, however, seems to suggest that there is no such thing as an absolute identity and that even socially accepted "healthy" identities (such as Christianity) are constructed rather than intrinsic. There are many parallels in the way Cervantes and Dostoevsky deal with madness. Like Cervantes, Dostoevsky aims to initially convince the reader that his protagonist, Raskolnikov, is mad. Through free and direct speech, Dostoevsky opens a window into Raskolnikov's mental processes. This entry into the protagonist's mind is a departure from Cervantes, whose narrative voice remains distinct from that of the protagonist. Dostoevsky transports the reader into Raskolnikov's head by blending the narrative voice with Raskolnikov's interior monologue. One of Raskolnikov's thoughts, for example, slips into the narration: "But stopping on the stairs to have to dodge all the time, apologize, lie - oh, no, better to sneak down the stairs somehow like a cat and slip away without being seen by anyone." anyone" (Dostoevsky 3). In contrast, a technique Dostoevsky uses to capture Raskolnikov's disjointed thought process also creeps into the narrative. The ellipsis - often used to illustrate how Raskolnikov's thoughts come together - are usually restrained within the quotes of his inner thoughts. Sometimes, however, they seem to escape him: “Now its strange sound suddenly seemed to remind [Raskolnikov] of something and bring it clearly before him? He jumped, this time his nerves werebecome so weak" (Dostoevsky 6). Even Raskolnikov's first transcribed thoughts - which stammer with babble - resonate with madness: "I learned to stammer this month, lying in a corner day after day, thinking about the country of cuckoos" ( Dostoevsky 4). The narrative description of Raskolnikov promotes the idea that he is crazy: "There was something strange about him; his eyes even seemed to be lit up with ecstasy, there even seemed to be a glimmer of madness in them" (Dostoevsky 12). As the novel develops, there is more and more evidence suggesting that Raskolnikov is mad. This evidence mainly includes actions and thoughts that seem inconsistent, contradictory, asocial, without a rational reason or independent of causality. For example, after Raskolnikov reads his mother's letter, he shows what seem like contradictory emotions: sadness and mischievous joy tears? But when it ended, he was pale, convulsively twisted, and a heavy, bilious, spiteful smile wandered across his face" (Dostoevsky 39). Such examples suggesting that Raskolnikov is mad are innumerable. While Dostoevsky clearly wants Raskolnikov to appear mad, the gap between madness and sanity in Crime and Punishment is even less clear than in Don Quixote The first binary that becomes problematic is that the world inside Raskolnikov's mind is mad and the world outside is orderly and sane reader catches glimpses of complete lucidity and even calculation in Raskolnikov's reasoning and behavior, until it becomes clear that Raskolnikov, like Don Quixote, is at once sane and mad, an apparent paradox that is not entirely surprising to some the whose name comes from raskol, the Russian word for to split, Raskolnikov shouts at this mother and her sister “with exaggerated irritation,” but he was “partly pretending” (Dostoevsky 246). Yet another binary – placing Razumikhin at the sane extreme and Raskolnikov at the insane extreme – parallels the binary that Cervantes establishes between Sancho Panza and Don Quixote. It works similarly. Razumikhin displays a kind of madness: he is always drunk, which clouds his reason and makes him socially domineering. Perhaps the most striking binary that Dostoevsky destabilizes is that between the reader and Raskolnikov, which classifies the reader as sane and Raskolnikov as mad. However, Dostoevsky, by granting the reader access to Raskolnikov's inner world, facilitates a connection between reader and protagonist. By the time Raskolnikov has committed the murder, the reader finds himself as caught up in the emotion and excitement as Raskolnikov is, experiencing an indirect feeling of anxiety about the possibility of being arrested and released after the crime is finally committed. Dostoevsky, like Cervantes, suggests that madness has no agency in itself, but is simply a behavioral classification. Raskolnikov's reasons for committing the murder are purposely left ambiguous and perhaps remain unresolved, even by the end of the novel. Dostoevsky presents several possible explanations for why Raskolnikov committed the crime, including financial gain, humanitarian reasons, mental illness, and environmental influences, to name a few. While each proposal has merit and seems plausible, none of them is alone enough to explain Raskolnikov's behavior. The environment, for example, is cited as a possible cause. Given the terrible poverty of his situation, it is no wonder that he is driven to desperation. Svidrigailov observes that "one rarely finds a place where there are so many dark, sharp and strange influences on the soul of a man as in Petersburg (Dostoevsky 467). Razumikhin describes him as "a poor student, crippled by povertyand from hypochondria, on the verge of cruel illness and delirium" (Dostoevsky 268). Some believe that "if society itself were organized normally, all crimes would immediately disappear, because there would be no reason to protest and everyone would immediately become right," while others are firmly against this theory because "nature is not taken into account" (Dostoevsky 256). When none of these theories seems to be sufficient, it is concluded "that the crime itself could not have occurred otherwise than in some mode of temporary madness, including, as it were, a morbid monomania of murder and robbery, without any ulterior purpose or calculation of profit" (Dostoevsky 536). This conclusion, however, seems terribly insufficient, leaving the reader with a cold dissatisfaction. The political theory that Raskolnikov adheres to most vehemently is that there are two classes of people: the ordinary and the extraordinary. As much as Raskolnikov wants to believe that his crime was some sort of trial to see whether he was a Napoleon or a louse, the truth seems to be that he already knows he is not Napoleon. He says to himself: "Should I have known before? Eh! but I knew before!" (Dostoevsky 274). Perhaps Raskolnikov comes closest to understanding by concluding that "he just wanted to dare? That's why!" (Dostoevsky 418). It is this unidentifiable, visceral, almost compulsive impulse that originates from deep within the subconscious. While Dostoevsky cannot help the reader completely demystify the human subconscious, he can induce a pang, however slight, of the same subconscious need to kill that Raskolnikov himself feels. . This, perhaps, is Dostoevsky's true stroke of genius. This impulse exists completely outside the realm of madness, as defined by society. It is also important to remember that Dostoevsky was writing in a post-Freudian era, and Dostoevsky seems to encourage the reader to theorize about Raskolnikov's subconscious activity. Raskolnikov's dreams about the horse and the apocalyptic world require such analysis. In this dream he is a little boy walking with his father. They come across a crowd of drunken people trying to force an old mare to drag a load too heavy for her. Raskolnikov, as a child, feels completely helpless because he cannot provoke a response from his helpless father and cannot stop the whipping, even when he puts his body between the horse and the whip (Dostoevsky 56). This dream suggests another possible motive for the crime: Raskolnikov wants to do something to oppose his feelings of helplessness and helplessness in life. When Porfiry says, “Human nature is a mirror, sir, the clearest mirror,” perhaps he is referring to the fact that our behavior is a manifestation of activity occurring at a subconscious level that we cannot rationally understand (Dostoevsky 342). The subconscious is like a black box that consolidates countless causes and results in a particular action or thought. However, how these causes interact within this dark box is a very complicated question, which Dostoevsky certainly does not fully resolve. It is likely that the activity and functioning of the subconscious goes beyond even the retrospective theorizing of the conscious mind. Because the subconscious mind is so difficult to understand, the actions it performs may be mislabeled by society as induced by madness. Dostoevsky and Cervantes both argue that madness is defined by society and is description rather than an agent. In this, they recognize the universality of impulses and desires to satisfy our subconscious needs. There is, however, something that distinguishes Don Quixote and Raskolnikov from the average person. The difference seems to lie in"..