Content Warning: This play romanticizes mental health conditions and uses terminology that reinforces the stigma around them.

The conflict at the heart of Man of La Mancha arises from Cervantes’s and Don Quixote’s refusal to accept the world as it is and instead to fight for the world as it should be, even when that fight seems hopeless. The play acknowledges that this idealism may be an “impossible dream,” but in the end asserts that a life inspired by idealism is superior to one based on cold realism.

Don Quixote is the embodiment of idealism in the play. His insistence on fighting windmills and elevating simple folk to lords and ladies not only acknowledges how some people see idealism as ridiculous or foolish—he embraces the stereotype and then shows the positive results. Don Quixote insists in “The Impossible Dream” that he intends to serve others without reward, and that the world will be better as a result. In the most significant example of this attitude, Don Quixote’s respectful treatment of Aldonza initially appears incongruous with her social standing, but it ultimately encourages her to embrace a better version of herself. The prisoners’ enthusiastic singing of “The Impossible Dream” at the play’s end asserts that this type of inner transformation can occur in the “real” world as well.