‘El Chapo’ may get lesson from novel
Sitting safely behind bars once again, Mexican drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman will have plenty of time to reform.
And a Spanish cult hero who shares his delusional dreams of grandeur may help him do it.
Mexican prison officials gave Guzman a copy of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote in an effort to cheer him up. Eduardo Guerrero, the head of Mexico’s prison systems, said Guzman appeared “depressed” and “tired of being on the run” since he was recaptured in early January after escaping prison in July.
Don Quixote is a 17th century Spanish epic about a man who decides to set off on adventures as a so- called knight with the goal of reviving chivalry and becoming famous.
Reading the novel may do Guzman some good because there’s a parallel between him and the novel’s titular character, University of Guelph professor and author Stephen Henighan said.
“I think they’re trying to tell him he’s delusional,” Henighan, a Latin American culture and literature expert, said. “There is an assumption here that El Chapo lives in a world of illusion and needs to get a grip on reality.”
Henighan said Don Quixote’s adventures — particularly, one where he attacks windmills because he thinks they’re giants — prove that the character doesn’t “perceive reality correctly.”
Mexican police were able to pinpoint Guzman’s location largely because of his desire to have a biopic filmed about his life. Guzman even contacted several producers and actresses through intermediaries, giving police a lead on his whereabouts.
“He wants to be famous,” Henighan said. “The reason El Chapo keeps getting arrested is because he wants to be seen in public. He wants people like Sean Penn to make movies about him.”
Don Quixote wanted the same type of fame.
Laurence de Looze, a professor at Western University’s department of modern languages and literatures, said the hero visualized all the books that would be written about him and his quests.
“He is imagining about how one day they will write about his great adventures and he’s narrating it in his own head,” de Looze said. “He’s got ahead of himself and in the same sense, El Chapo got ahead of himself.”
In North America, most prisons are known for making texts like The Bible readily available to inmates. De Looze said reading Don Quixote may even be more beneficial.
“Don Quixote screws up again and again, but he really goes out desiring to make the world a better place,” he said. “El Chapo is a person who has not dedicated himself to ideals. It might be a good lesson for him.”
Prison officials may hope that having Guzman read Don Quixote’s tale may help him come to the realization that the thought of being a celebrity, Robin Hood-esque kingpin was all in his mind.