How we cite our quotes: (Part.Book.Chapter.Paragraph) We use the P. A. Motteux translation from 1712 for our quotes. Some familiar character names appear differently in this edition (Sancho Panza is Sancho Panca here, Rocinante is Rozinante, and Doña Rodriguez is Donna Rodriguez). We preserve Motteux's spellings in our quotes but use the more familiar versions of these names in our analysis.
Quote #1
Don Quixote […] once more dropped his target, lifted up his lance, and then let if fall so heavily on the fellow's pate, that, without damaging his lance, he broke the carrier's head in three or four places. (1.1.3.2)
Let's not mince words here. Don Quixote just cracked a guy's skull in three or four places. That means that this dude is either going to die or suffer serious brain damage. And this is just one of the first people Don Quixote meets in this book. The book does a good job of telling us what the injury is. But it never follows up on how this poor guy fares after Don Quixote moves on. For all we know, he's dead. Now, this kind of violence happens all the time in stories of knight-errantry, and the consequences rarely matter there, since the stories are all about the heroes. Do you think Cervantes is making fun of that tradition?
Quote #2
With that, he caught the youngster by the arm, and tied him again to the tree; where he handled him so unmercifully, that scarce any signs of life were left in him. (1.1.4.2)
Maybe the Spanish were de-sensitized to violence because of all the wars and torture that were already going on in Spain when Cervantes wrote this book. But the book can still be gory, as we find in this passage, where a middle-aged man ties a young boy to a tree and whips him until the kid is nearly dead.
Quote #3
"[He] so belaboured Don Quixote's sides with one of [the wooden pieces] that, in spite of his arms, he thrashed him like a wheat-sheaf." (1.1.4.5)
One thing that makes it tough to get a read on violence in this book is that Cervantes often uses similes and other figures of speech to mask or make light of scenes of violence. In this case, he makes it easier to hear about Don Quixote's beating by comparing his body to a wheat sheaf.