The story of Don Quixote is an excellent example of the tragedy of a narcissistically conditioned 'world catastrophe'. Don Quixote has

withdrawn all the cathexes necessary for bringing the ego into contact with reality and has transformed them into a single narcissistic force which permits a return to the phantasies of childhood and boyhood. Sancho Panza is his bridge to reality, represents a dissociated part of him which can accept his instinctual impulses, and in his care of the knight also plays, in a humorous fashion, the rôles of father and mother. The portrayal of Sancho as a dissociated part of Don Quixote presents to us the antitheses in man which together constitute a unity. The effectiveness of the story lies in its painting, for the idealist, the idealistic struggle against a world of windmills; for the realist, the depreciatory triumph of caricature; and a pleasurable mastery over the infantile past for both.