Cervantes' Don Quixote is at once one and multiple texts. Cervantes tells the stories of Don Quixote, who has gone mad obsessing over chivalric texts. Cervantes mocks these texts through a parody of chivalry, mocking the heroic characters and deeds that constitute such low-brow literature.
Just as Cervantes mimics chivalry in Don Quixote, the protagonist does so as well. Cervantes goes through the motions of chivalry cynically, while Don Quixote, however, does so gullibly. At once, we have two commentaries on chivalry (so far) - that it misleads, but that it proves glory.
In Chapters II and III of Part II of Don Quixote, Cervantes adds another layer of textuality. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza learn that a moor named Cide Hamete Berenjena has written an account of their deeds. Don Quixote attributes the fact that this book has been made so soon after his accomplishments that "the blood of the enemies he had slain was not yet dry on the blade of his sword" to magic, denying unremarkable reality as he has done throughout the book (473). He proceeds to refuse reality by doubting Sancho Panza's mention in the moor's book: he reassures himself that "the acts of squires were never written down" (474). Don Quixote also dismisses the possibility that the moor has "annihilate(d) (his chivalric exploits) and place(d) them lower than the basest acts ever attributed to the basest squire" (473).
Making assumptions about the book Cide Hamete Berenjena has written without even reading it, Don Quixote creates, as it were, his own text. Each time Don Quixote considers an unpleasant truth - that such a book does not exist, that it mentions Sancho Panza, and that it indicts his deeds - he immediately reassures himself, conjuring up a text which he approves. Thus we have two potentially contradictory texts about Don Quixote, within a text that mocks a certain genre of text.
These layers of reality are a formal way in which Cervantes expresses the notion of subjective reality. Cervantes begins Don Quixote in the prologue warning the reader of inevitable flaws in the following stories, thereby demonstrating his outlook on his own work as biased. At the same time, Cervantes mocks chivalric texts, deeming them unrealistic and silly. In Part II, Cervantes has Don Quixote produce a text about himself to his own liking, when it may very well be different. Cervantes does make a general argument against chivalric literature, but also makes the reader aware of his bias. At the same time, Don Quixote creates a reality that does not match that of any other character. Even though Cervantes portrays Don Quixote as foolish, he also emphasizes that reality is subjective. The book about Don Quixote is at once as he sees it and others see it, and Don Quixote is only as Cervantes portrays him. Finally, Don Quixote is only as the reader interprets it. Don Quixote may seem to make contrasts between truth and fiction with the "chivalric exploits" of its protagonist, but it rather blurs any contrast with its many layers of reality.
