theprotagonist make the eponymous Don Quixote a complicated, complex character, which contrasts markedly with the more one-dimensional hero-protagonists who populated most novels that Don Quixote himself read.

Don Quixote tells the story of a man who falls in love with adventure and chivalry after reading myriads of stories about them. He leaves his comfortable home in search of finding his own adventures and transforms himself into Don Quixote de la Mancha. Cervantes admires his hero but simultaneously presents him as the flawed and generally unstable character that he is. He is a big-hearted but delusional hero who sees courage and spunk in his initially dismayed sidekick, Sancho, and purity and romance in the young peasant woman whom he calls Dulcinea.

Don Quixote is a complex character who embarks on a prototypical heroic journey. Accompanied by Sancho, the book is among the earlier picaresque stories set to print, and the humor that Cervantes uses to paint a portrait of the archetypal odd couple they form is another modern element. In fact, Cervantes's use of humor and irony makes it easy to read and digest, but also enable the author to comment on social injustices prevalent in his time and ours.

Even though Don Quixote cannot seem to understand the reality of the situations he confronts and people in his life, which prompts him to tilt at windmills, his fight for justice underscores many of the social injustices that were prevalent during the period Cervantes wrote. In a modern literary manner, Cervantes uses parody, humor and irony to spotlight these injustices.

Don Quixote's very ability to inspire others—Sancho and Dulcinea—to achieve their dreams during a period in which social mobility was extremely limited reflects another element of modernism.