Don Quixote

Aging gentleman reads too many chivalry romances; sallies forth to right wrongs and defend ladies in a world that no longer obeys those rules; mistakes windmills for giants; is mocked, beaten, and finally restored to ordinary sanity on his deathbed when he renounces the books. Failure mode: Living inside a literary order that no longer matches the world; refusing the reality test. Restoration path: Renunciation on the deathbed; sanity is itself a confession. Markers: consumes one genre until it possesses him; mistakes ordinary objects for the genres figures; Sancho the practical companion; mocked by the worldly; sane on the deathbed and renounces the cause — Don Quixote, Cervantes, Don Quixote (Literature)