Genre of Van Winkle

During lecture Monday Sexson brought up the literary genre of a character dreaming a whole lifetime in the matter of a few hours or less. This being found in all fictional storytelling entertainment mediums; film with the eternally classic Dorthy's quest to the Wizard of Oz, literature with Alice and her magical trip to Wonderland, and even television with Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the episode of the "Space Probe".













Walking out of the classroom the tale of Rip Van Winkle popped into my head. This literary genre of sorts seems to stem from this classic story of a lazy, slothful farmer who gets drunk with a bunch of enchanted bowlers and falls asleep for twenty years. However, the literary genre talked about in class is more of a reverse of this tale, the world imagined possessing the drastic time leaps, not the real world as in Rip Van Winkle. And another thing is that Rip Van Winkle is more of a moral cautionary tale. Don't be lazy of ghosts will bowl you into a twenty year coma. And the happy ending of Rip being accepted again and learning from his evil slothy ways. Perhaps this explains the occasional epiphany a character achieves, or obtains while away in their unconscious, dreamy timeless world. They learn from their Cave of Montesinos adventures about themselves of whatever quests they are on.

Now, I am now on page 693 of Don Quixote and all hell is breaking loose. Don Quixote has fallen into the clutches of the Dutches and her Duke their entire household is having way too much fun at Don Quixote's madness's expense. A horde of demons is now descending down upon our white knight , The Knight of the Lions with a somewhat Sorrowful Face . The Knight's face is Sorrowful, not the Lions mind you.
I see Don Quixote's innocence being mocked and threatened at the same time. All this time he has been wondering about believing in his own madness and then the Duchess and Duke come along. They're like two mean adults who take the child's game of pirates too far and drive out to the lake to strand their kid on the beach. And poor Don Quixote is the child wondering why his father has replaced his hand with a hook and keeps referring to his mother as a wench. They're playing along with his game of Romantic Golden Knights and Don Quixote, and Sancho, don't know whether to believe it themselves or take them all for mad.