In the Name of the Mother (Mary)?: The Un-Christian Motives of Zoraida
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/anacervantinos.2025.601Keywords:
Zoraida, Mary, Agi Morato, The Captive’s Tale, Islam, Catholicism, ConversionAbstract
This essay will examine, through a novel framework constructed primarily around Islam, the alleged religious motivations related to Mary that Zoraida declares to justify her escape from Algiers. Zoraida continuously invokes Mary and presents her as the primary catalyst for her decision to abandon her father and faith, but that proclaimed justification does not pass muster when analyzed through the lens of the accepted practices and traditions of Islam (it must be remembered that Zoraida remains a Muslim throughout Don Quixote). That is, the primacy that Zoraida gives to Mary already exists within Islam, and therefore, it makes the most sense to understand Zoraida’s self-proclaimed comparison to Mary as an excuse to break away from Agi Morato while others’ association of Zoraida with Mary reflects the historical context of the latter providing emotional succor to Catholic captives in Muslim lands in that era.
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