Virtuous Capital for a Miraculous Escape: Love, Devotion, and Synchronicities in Cervantes’ “The Captive’s Tale”

In the story of “The Captive” – Don Quijote I, chapters 39-41 – several characters of the main plot –Don Quijote, Sancho, Fernando, Luscinda, Cardenio, Dorotea, together with the remaining hosts at the inn– become witnesses, an improvised audience of the recounted adventures of a young soldier and a Muslim renegade. Just arrived from Algiers, Ruy and Zoraida decide to make public the details of their accidental escape. Due to the complexity of this story, gender, historical, religious and trauma theory approaches, among others, have contributed to enrich its analysis. This paper will complement them by exploring details about the flow, accumulation and negotiation of its “virtuous capital,” in a revisitation and expansion of several of Bourdieu’s key concepts related to symbolic capital, such as habit, hysteresis, religious field and “Don Quixote effect” – suggesting its counterpart, the “Sancho effect.” The proposed approach will contribute to a more clear understanding of the attitudes and relationships established between the main characters of the tale, namely: –The origin and nature of Zoraida’s faith in Algiers, and her choice to marry Ruy. –The escape agreement among Zoraida and the three prisoners. –Ruy’s reintegration and acceptance of his family at his arrival to Spain. This story, essential to understand religion and spirituality in the first part of Don Quixote, has been thoroughly studied from its folkloric and historic perspectives (Chevalier 1983: 405-11 and Garcés 2002: 182-232). The presence of several