Ginés de Pasamonte. On how everyone is a child to their deeds.

Abstract

This essay succinctly explores the relationship between the concept of individuality and Ginés de Pasamonte, one of the galley slaves freed by Don Quixote in chapter XXII of the first part of Cervantes' work. Special emphasis is placed on the influences that the author of the work took from the Spanish picaresque of the sixteenth century, in particular, the idea that the destiny of each individual is determined by the acts for which each one is personally responsible. and direct, not so much because of the lineage or because of the socioeconomic situation of the family to which each person belongs. Ginés de Pasamonte fully exemplifies this ideal, since he not only recognizes that his forced situation in a galley is a direct result of his past actions; but he takes into his hands, in a way that seems to escape even the narrator of the story, his freedom and future. Because of this, the same narrator loses track of Ginés, who goes on to live adventures that will be his own, his encounters with Don Quixote and Sancho being another episode of his life.