BA #11 Sancho Panzo

Sancho Panza first appears in page 42.

Sancho Panza was a farmer and a neighbor of Don Quijote. He agreed to be Don’s squire after receiving an earful of delightful but yet delusional story about the knight’s chivalry. He also provided Don’s companionship as well as a role of a person with much clearer vision: “ what you see over there aren’t giants, but windmills…” (43).

There are some similarities between Sancho Panza and Don Quijote as they were enthusiastic about traveling to whereabouts unknowns. Don had his armor, shield, helmet and a slightly lamed horse. Sancho was “advised to bring along saddlebags… and …a very fine donkey” (42) which Don “had a doubt about the donkey, trying to remember…whose squire rode on an ass, but couldn’t recall a single one” (42). Sancho had a doubt about Don Quijote’s clear vision: “Didn’t I tell your grace to be careful…these were just windmills…had to have windmills in the head?” (44).

I think Sancho is a hero for providing patience companionship, sympathetic ears and much clearer vision ahead for Don Quijote’s misadventure.

BA #11 Senor Pero Perez- The Preist

1. The priest is first introduced on page 32 of the text. Volume 1 Chapter 5.



2. The priest is a faithful man, who is "great friends with Don Quijote" (32). The priest has concerns that Don Quijote's book's are the cause of his madness. At face value the priest goes along with Don Quijote's story about the 10 giants who attacked him (34) and vows to "burn them all before nightfall tomorrow" (34). The priest is a genuine friend of Don Quijote, who has many concerns over Don's sanity.



3. The priest compares most to the barber, who just like the priest, criticize most of the books that Don Quijote reads. Both being "good Christians" (36), they hope to rid Don Quijote's stakes of idol books which contain blasphimous adventures. The priest, like the barber, are willing to burn all of Don Quijote's books in an attempt to reconcile Don's sanity. While both begin to throw books off the balcony, The priest and the barber find books to their liking and decide that they are not along the same lines as the "chivalrous" ones, on the only basis that they had both read them before.



4. The priest is a powerful character who should be characterised in a heroistic way. He believes deep in his christian heart that the books that Don Quijote has read are truly poison. Why else has Don lost his mind, all he does is read books, night and day. It seems as thought e priest has every true intention of stirring Don in a good direction, even though his christian motive seems a little trival to the average reader.

BA#11

1. Don Quijote first appears on page 13.

2. Don Quijote is a simple man who is “close to fifty, but strong, lean, his face sharp” (13). He spends as much as “two consecutive days and nights” reading tales of chivalry (33). Very early in the novel we are shown that Quijote is delusional. He envisions an inn as a castle, he christens horses and people with mystical names, and he is willing to single handedly engage in battle with “a great crowd” (29). He is loveable, as shown by the support of the townspeople when he arrives home “beaten”, but he is also a prone to making bad decisions that cause more of those endless wrongs he has set out to somehow end.

3. This one is a bit tough. He has a great appreciation for a time long passed, so I’m going to stretch that a bit here and compare him to a griot, Djeli Mamoudou Kouyate, in Sundiata. Quixote can quote (or misquote) numerous characters from the multitude of chivalrous novels he has obsessively read. This part of history is important to him, so this is what he shares with others. Since chivalry is considered nothing more than words on a page that hold no real action in life, Quijote is trying to keep the past alive. A griot claims to be the “memory of mankind” and without them “the names of kings would vanish” (1). A griot must know much more history than our dear Quijote, but both characters keep elements of the past alive.

4. As much as my sympathetic side wants me to call Quijote a hero, my conscience says otherwise. His bumbling errors cause more harm to the precise people he is trying to help. The best example is the poor boy who is being unmercifully whipped by his master. Quijote quickly believes that the master will give in to his demands of paying the boy, and threatens that he will “hunt you down and punish you” (28). As soon as Quijote is outside of hearing range, the master whips the boy to within inches of his life. Quijote’s inability to see the short range of his powers cause much more harm than good. He is not a hero yet, but he deserves some credit for believing so firmly in something and acting upon that belief, no matter how short sighted he is.

BA # 11

Don Quijote first appears right in the beggining of the novel on page 13. The narrator begins the story with describing Don Quijote. "In the village of La Mancha their lived, not very long ago, one of those gentleman who keep a lance in the lance-rack, an ancient shield, a skinny old horse, and a fast grey hound." (page 13). After he is described his name is mentioned.Don Quijote is a very odd character. He is an old man who seems to have gone crazy. He was known to always have his nose in one of those old romance novels and knight tales. Eventually he decided he wanted to become a knight. He realized he needed to do all the things that typical knights he read about do. He needed a horse (which his was not very strong), a woman to fall in love with, armor,he needed to be dubbed a knight, and most importantly he wanted to "set right endless injustices" (Pg17).I don't think that Don Quijote is like any character we have seen. If Don Quijote was actually born a knight then maybe we could compare him to Odysseus or another hero, but he seems like just a ordinary old man who has gone crazy. although he is acting like a hero some could say, he is only acting this way because he wants to be a knight. He was not born for greatness, the sky did not thunder the day he was born. There were no prophecies stating that he was born for greatness. Don Quijote is just trying to act like a knight so he is doing everything that he thinks a knight does. In the other books we have read, the main characters were hero's, and in this book, Don quijote is just trying to immitate one

BA 10 - Oulamba the Hunter

Oulamba the hunter has an important role in the story despite how little we actually see of him. In a scant few pages he is gone and never seen again, but seems to display qualities of heroism. If it were not for his actions this story would not have taken place.

He was initially seen with his brother Oulani wandering into the kingdom of Mali with a maiden in tow, a young Songlon. "Two young hunters, handsome and of fine carriage, were walking along preceded by a young maid." (6). He then recalls a story to the royal court of his travels and adventures.

Oulamba and Oulani were on a journey, wandering and hunting. The idea of a trek, an adventure has been a theme that has run rampant throughout all the heroic epic literature that we have read. While in the land of Do, they learn of a red bull that has been terrorizing the citizens; "We met two hunters, one of whom was wounded and we learnt from them that an amazing buffalo was ravaging the countryside of Do....The king, Do Mansa-Gnemo-Diarra, had promised the finest rewards to the hunter who killed the buffalo." (7). They decide to try their luck where so many others had failed. This is similar to just about every other story we've read; a quest to defeat an unbeatable mythic creature. It's a very heroic trait.

As the quest continued they came upon an old, battered, hungry woman who everyone else ignored. "Touched by her tears, I approached and took some pieces of dried meat from my hunter's bag. When she had eaten well she said 'Hunter, may God requite you with the charity you have given me.'" (7). This is reminiscent of The Ramayana and its ideas about karma. The hero Rama had good things happen to him in response to his good actions, and the same with the bad.

However, it turns out that the old woman actually is the buffalo in question, but decides to help the hunter in return for his kindness. She gives very explicit directions as to how to defeat her when he finds her, and also how to accept the king's rewards, directing him to, when the king allows him to choose of any maiden to marry, to pick out Sogolon, the ugliest one of the crowd. He follows these instructions precisely as told, obedient like Dante the hero of The Inferno.

As he offers Sogolon to the king of Mali, he is the one ultimately responsible for all the events of the book, setting up the birth of Sundiata.

BA#10 Manding Bory/Manding Boukari

1. Manding Boukari aka (Manding Bory) first appears on page 16 of Sundiata when he is born and named.
2. Manding Bory is the third son of King Naré Maghan (Sundiata’s father) and his third wife, Namandjé. He is Sundiata’s youngest brother and best friend. Although he was to be instructed in sorcery, he “had no gift of sorcery” (27).
3. Manding Bory is similar to several sidekicks we have seen. He is like Gilgamesh’s Enkidu, Rama’s Lakshmana and Telemachus’ Pisistratus. He, like the other side kicks of our main heroes, is always with Sundiata to offer support, encouragement, loyalty and friendship.
4. Manding Bory is a hero because he is Sundiata’s “right hand” (16). He is to Sundiata “like a man and his shadow” (23). He stands up for Sundiata when he is too “angry” to speak (27) just like Lakshmana stands up for Rama when he is removed from the throne.

BA #10 Balla Fesseke

1) Balla Fesseke, son of Gnankouman Doua, first appears on page 17. He is the inheritor of the griot position to the protagonist Sundiata; his grandfather and father having filled the role to the previous generations of kings in lineal descent to Sundiata (17).

2) Though it is still early in the epic's development Fesseke has already begun to demonstrate, with heroic devotion, a fulfillment of his role as griot to the prince Sundiata, unveiling a character of principled discipline that embraces his responsibilities. When Sundiata requests an iron rod it is Fesseke that quickly obliges, speaking prophetically in a manner suited to a griot when asked by the smith if Sundiata's time has come: "[t]oday is a day like any other, but it will see what no other day has seen" (20). Subsequently, upon each of Sundiata's supernatural feats of turning the iron rod into a bow and stepping the length of a giant's pace, Fesseke records the moments in song (21). By versifying the accomplishments of the leader he has pledged himself to, and being instrumental in carrying out his commands, he has displayed the characteristics of an effective griot. That his fidelity was begun during the time of Sundiata's lame disfavor adds a heroic honesty to his service.

3) Bella Fesseke reminds me of Lakshmana from the Ramayana. When compared, they share a childhood kinship with their centrally heroic protagonists. Additionally, they are royal characters that are cast out of a kingdom and must continue in their leader's service until fortune allots their return.

4) In the Preface, D. T. Niane briefly describes the historically central role the griot played within ancient African Society: "the griot appears as one of the most important of this [pre-colonial] society, because it is he who, for want of archives , records the customs, traditions and governmental principles of kings" (xxiii). In this setting the griot operates as an embodiment of the culture's conscience, so that as a character within the work his heroic proportions are judged on more of a moral scale of the effectiveness of his confidences with Sundiata. The more physical acts which have been the basis by which we have generally applied to the central heroes of the previous works do not apply as readily for Fesseke. It is as an advisor and intellectual compass that the developement of his heroism will (probably?) take place, even-though his devotion, reminiscent of Enkidu, is already evident. In this way he is not the classic hero wrought from the mold of Gilgamesh, Ramayana and Ulysses. If we assess his heroism it will have to be in terms of heroic support along the lines of Enkidu, Lakshmana and Athena.