Octavio Paz's Poet: The Labyrinth of Solitude

Aside from clarifying for the non-Mexican universe what he retrieves to be the nature of Mexico and the Mexican character, Paz wants to appeal to those Mexicans "who be conscious of themselves, for one reason or another, as Mexicans." though "this group is quite small," it is " in any case increasing. They are conquering Mexico" (Paz 11-12). He believes that this group is strong enough and determined enough to hold the Mexico of the incoming, redeeming it from its social, economic and political doldrums.

Paz writes effectively about how the Mexican fails to be real and complete. He blames this falseness, or "mask," on colonial oppressors, only if also puts blame on the Mexican himself or herself, for not breaking the chains of past oppression:

The Mexican . . . is afraid of others' looks and therefore he withdraws, contracts, be catchs a shadow, a phantasm, an echo. . . . by bechance our habit of dissimulating originated in colonial times. . . . The colonial world has disappeared, but not the fear (Paz 42-43).

Paz describes the celebratory nature of the Mexican, but also has much insightful to say about the suffering of the reasonable Mexican. For example, he explains this paradox, arguing that the Mexican fiesta is a focusing for him to forget his indigence for the moment, as well as to come out of his solitude and become a part of a spiritual community:

Our p everyplacety can be deliberate by the frequency and luxuriousness of our holidays. . . . How could a poor Mexican

live without the . . . fiestas that make up for his poverty and misery? Fiestas are our only luxury.

The reader who anticipates in these pages a final and definitive description of the Mexican character exit be frustrated and disappointed. Paz recognizes, to the contrary, that the Mexican character is still in a dynamic stage of formation, and that it will e'er be so. A part of the Mexican character will always remain---that celebratory aspect---but it is up to the Mexican today and in the future to wrest himself and his nation from the continuing spiritual inhibitions left over from the colonial era.

Work Cited

Paz argues here that the bureaucracy and technology of the atomic number 7 American separates him or her from intent and death in a way that the poor Mexican is not separated from flavour and death. The Mexican may not be complete, or fully real, or healthy in his or her relationship to life and death, but he or she is at least to a greater extent complete, real and healthy than the North American.

. . . These ceremonies give him a chance to reveal himself and to converse with God, country, friends or relations. . . . The Mexican does not seek amusement: he seeks to escape from himself, to leap over the protect of solitude that confines him. . . . (Paz 48-49).

I do not urge return to the past, . . . nor do I advocate that we go covering fire into the clutches of a tradition that was strangling us. I believe that Mexico, like the other Latin-American countries, must find her witness modernity. In a certain sense she must even off it. But she must start with the ways of living and dying, acquiring and spending, working and playing that our people has created (Paz 398).

Paz is not a scientific writer using statistics to prove his point. He is not primarily exploring the material world of the Mexican, but the world of the national character, sentience or spirit. He is a poet who does not lose himself in theories, but uses images (such as the stagnant pool and the mirror) to make hi
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