Don Quixote Timeline and Summary

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• One day, Don Quixote puts down one of his books about medieval knights and decides that he wants to become one. He thereby christens himself the great Don Quixote.
• Saddling his skinny horse, the Don rides up and down the countryside looking for adventures. He tries to save a young boy from getting whipped by his boss but fails miserably.
• As if that weren't enough, the Don starts attacking random strangers on the road because he thinks they have insulted the beauty of his fictional lady love, Dulcinea.
• Eventually, the Don gets himself beaten up pretty badly and has to be brought back home. But his hunger to be a knight is still there.
• When he's feeling better, Don Quixote makes a second journey into the world as a great knight. He even recruits a sidekick named Sancho Panza to help him with some basic chores like carrying food.
• Don Quixote and Sancho get themselves in all kinds of trouble when they set loose a bunch of Spanish prisoners. Sancho convinces the Don that it's probably a good idea to go hang out in a nearby mountain range until the heat dies down.
• Once he reaches the mountain range, Don Quixote runs into a crazy-looking mountain man named Cardenio. Cardenio insults a character from one of Don Quixote's books and Don Quixote tries to fight him. Cardenio nearly beats his brains out.
• Still in the mountains, Don Quixote decides that he has to perform penance for loving Dulcinea so much. He strips himself half-naked and starts hitting his head against rocks to show how tortured he is at not being able to see her.
• Eventually, two dudes from Don Quixote's hometown show up to bring him home. Don Quixote's niece and housekeeper are worried about him.
• Don Quixote buys in to a fake quest that the dudes from his hometown have offered him, and soon enough, they drag him home in a wooden cage, telling him that it's enchanted. Ooooh, ahhhhhh.
• Once he's back at home, Don Quixote gets some rest. But it isn't long before he hops back out of bed and decides to take up his adventures again.
• An educated guy from Don Quixote's hometown named Sansón Carrasco eggs him on by saying that there's a big knight combat tournament thing going down in Zaragoza—and that Don Quixote will surely win it.
• The Don summons Sancho Panza, and the two set off for new adventures.
• Early in their journey, Don Quixote is challenged to a duel by another knight, called the Knight of the Mirrors. Don Quixote wins and finds out that this other knight is Sansón Carrasco in disguise.
• Back on the road, Don Quixote and Sancho get themselves into random trouble a few times before eventually running into the Duke and Duchess. It turns out that part of Don Quixote's story has been written up and published, so people are familiar with what he's been up to.
• The Duke and Duchess find Don Quixote's madness very amusing, so they invite him to stay at their house and start messing with him. Sancho leaves to become governor of a fake island the Duke made up, and Don Quixote has to fend off the fake sexual advances of a fifteen-year-old girl named Altisidora.
• Eventually Don Quixote gets fed up with living in the lap of luxury and sets off for Zaragoza. On his way there, though, he decides to change his route to Barcelona.
• In Barcelona, Don Quixote stays with a man named Don Antonio, who also likes to mess with him.
• Toward the end of his stay in Barcelona, Don Quixote is challenged to a duel by another knight, this one called the Knight of the White Moon (it's actually Sansón Carrasco in disguise again). Don Quixote loses the duel, and as punishment, he has to go home and stop being a knight for a whole year.
• On his way home with Sancho, the Don decides that he'd like to spend his next year being a shepherd and writing lovely songs. But before he can do this, he gets sick and dies.
• As he's dying, Don Quixote recovers his wits and says that all of his talk about knights and all his adventures have been nothing but foolishness. He makes his last will and testament to make sure his loved ones are taken care of, then dies.