Gauging Trustworthiness in the Intercalated Novels of the 1605 <i>Quijote</i>

Cervantes explores the complex and apparently contradictory principles of trust and its role in social relationships, including the challenge of gauging trustworthiness in others, throughout both parts of Don Quijote. I contend that trust is the main theme of three intercalated novels of the first part of Don Quijote: the star-crossed lovers (Cardenio–Fernando–Luscinda–Dorotea), “El curioso impertinente,” and the “Captive’s Tale” and that it is fruitful to read these tales through a theoretical framework informed by recent research on trust in the social sciences. Additionally, I propose that the centrality of the theme of trust plays an important role in the aesthetics of Cervantes’s novel, providing a thematic unity and the refreshing delight of variety to disparate tales centered on the fraught process of trust.