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| Emanuel Schikaneder in the role of Papageno, and the Visconti-Sforza "Fool" card |
I was rereading some comments on one of my posts about The Magic Flute. I had compared Prince Tamino and his feather-covered sidekick, Papageno, to Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and William Wildblood added, "They are almost like Frodo and Sam!" Rereading that, I suddenly thought, "Or Don Quixote and Sancho Panza!" -- but I refrained from posting that because, never having actually read Don Quixote, I owe to cultural osmosis whatever superficial idea I may have of the Don and his squire and thus can't really say how similar they may or may not be to the characters in the Mozart opera.
Anyway, my curiosity was piqued enough that I read a few paragraphs of the Wikipedia article on Sancho Panza, and I was intrigued to find this: "Sancho's wife is described more or less as a feminine version of Sancho, both in looks and behaviour" -- obviously calling to mind Papageno and Papagena ("But what if Sarastro had set aside for you a girl who was just like you in colouring and dress?").
Shortly after suddenly becoming (mildly) interested in that particular Cervantes character, I happened to read Oswald Wirth's short chapter on the 16th Tarot trump, "The House of God," which depicts a tower struck by lightning. Wirth ends this chapter thus:
When this arcan[um] ceases to be unfavourable, it puts one on guard against what it threatens. Salutary fears, reserve, timidity which preserves one from ill-considered risks; simplicity of mind remote from errors of learning, common sense, the wisdom of Sancho Panza.Sancho Panza again! The context of a House of God being struck by lightning also seemed to be a link to Papageno -- who is told, inside the Temple of Isis and Osiris, "Papageno, whoever breaks silence in this place is punished by the gods with thunder and lightning."
"The wisdom of Sancho Panza" -- and did Papageno have any wisdom to offer? Suddenly I thought of an anecdote I had heard years before from a philosophy professor.
The professor, wishing to demonstrate how easily we fall for logical errors, gave his class this syllogism: "All men are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, Socrates is a man" -- and asked them if it was valid. They rose to the bait and said that it was. The professor then presented a logically equivalent syllogism: "All birds are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, Socrates is a bird" -- and asked what they thought of that. Not valid, said one of the students. The professor asked why. "Because Socrates doesn't have feathers."
Simplicity of mind remote from errors of learning.
4 comments:
The hero's simple-minded sidekick is a kind of archetype in stories. Sam doesn't fit this because he develops so much, and becomes more like Frodo.
It seems that a key attribute of the (presumably, I haven't read it either) Sancho Panza character is that he does not change, and is always the same in every situation. He is therefore 'always himself' and has a solidity and authenticity denied the hero (who, because he is trying to develop and grow as a person) is more prone to err.
Since the sidekick cannot change he would be dramatically boring as the main character; and so must be secondary to the narrative.
If he gets a happy ending, it must be 'given' to him, like a Christmas present - just for being who he is.
He doesn't (cannot) earn a reward because he just does what is natural to him. It is consoling to hear such stories, because we all aspire to be loved simply for being who we are.
Such plots could only happen in a benign universe, with the creator as a loving parent - so probably such stories depend on that framework. Modern narratives, by contrast, regard such simple sidekick characters as deluded fools, and they often come to a pathic end (e.g. Lennie in Of Mice and Men)
'For 'pathic' read 'pathetic'.
I've misremembered the "Socrates doesn't have feathers" anecdote, which I apparently read in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2005 (quoted here). The roles assigned to the professor and the student should -- incredibly! -- be reversed.
Bruce, that's a good analysis of hero vs. sidekick, and I agree that Sam Gamgee doesn't really fit the mold.
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