Cat Got Your Tongue: Altisidora's Emasculation of Don Quixote.

This article analyzes the episode in part 2 of Cervantes’s *Don Quixote* in which the servant Altisidora orchestrates a cat attack on Don Quixote, interpreting it as a symbolic emasculation through the motif of the vagina dentata, or “toothed vagina.” Altisidora’s mouth and the cats she deploys function metonymically to represent male anxieties about female sexuality, castration, and challenges to traditional gender and class roles in early modern Spain. The essay situates Altisidora’s aggressive, sexually charged behavior and her role as both attacker and nurse within broader cultural critiques of masculinity in crisis and social hierarchy disruption, highlighting how the body—especially the face, mouth, and genital symbolism—serves as a site for expressing affective and material tensions. Ultimately, the episode reveals Don Quixote’s vulnerability and shame, reflecting the novel’s meditation on shifting notions of power, sexuality, and identity.