the niece

Also known as: Antonia Quixana / Antonia Quixana my niece / Don Quixote’s niece / Mistress Niece / his niece / my niece / niece · Family: Don Quixote's household · Role: Don Quixote's niece · First appears: Part 1, Ch. 1.1

In Part 1, the niece lives in Don Quixote’s household as his young relative, alongside the housekeeper and the lad. When the curate seeks the keys to Don Quixote’s library, she willingly gives them to him and joins the housekeeper in calling for the books to be destroyed. She also urges the curate to burn the poetry books, fearing that Don Quixote might recover from his chivalry and decide to become a shepherd instead. Later, Don Quixote places five ass-colts in her charge and orders three delivered to Sancho Panza, though the notebook containing the order is lost; after Don Quixote returns, she and the housekeeper put him to bed, while the curate charges her to keep him comfortable and prevent another escape.

In Part 2, the niece and the housekeeper are instructed by the curate and the barber to care for Don Quixote with suitable food and attention. They initially keep Sancho Panza from entering, but Don Quixote makes them admit him, and she later lets him in again when he comes to join the planned departure. She and the housekeeper recognize that Don Quixote intends to leave for a third adventure, though he has ordered Samson Carrasco to keep the plan secret from them. When he returns home, he is left in their care, and she protests when he begins speaking of new entanglements: “What’s this, uncle? Now that we were thinking you had come back to stay at home and lead a quiet respectable life there, are you going to get into fresh entanglements, and turn ‘young shepherd, thou that comest here, young shepherd going there?’” After Don Quixote’s bequests are settled, he leaves all his property to Antonia Quixana, his niece.