Cervantes depicts the struggle between Don Quixote and the Basque squire as an epic combat between equals. The Biscainer has a quixotic idea of his gentility which the rest of the world would disagree with. "What me no gentleman?" he cries and is ready to kill Don Quixote to defend his honor.
In this chapter, Cervantes introduces the device of a narrator who steps in and out of his story as it it were a piece of stagecraft. To insure the objectivity of the storyteller, the author is a Moor, for an infidel would try very hard to understate the achievements of a Spaniard. This assures the reader that the history of Don Quixote is true and unexaggerated.
