Octavio Paz's The Labyrinth of Solitude

This study will provide an analysis of Octavio Paz's The Labyrinth of Solitude, focusing on Paz' attempt to describe the character of the Mexican and Mexico. Paz is a poet and an imaginative thinker, rather than an abstract sociologist or scientist relying on statistics. Therefore, his description of the Mexican character is marked by images and vivid, sometimes troubling, speculations, rather than dry abstractions. In comparing the Mexican character to that of the American, for example, the author writes that "This Mexicanism---delight in decorations, carelessness and pomp, negligence, passion and reserve---floats in the air" (13). The solitude" of the title of the book is a state which humanity finds itself in as a result of the "collapse" of "universal order" (Paz 26). The world seems to be more and more complicated and mysterious. But human beings need a sense of order, so this human being imagines a new sense of order which arises out of his or her self. The entire book in some way is related to this solitude, how it came about, and ways that the Mexican (as well as the North American and other Latin Americans) tries to deny it or cope with it or escape it. Paz argues that "exile, expiation and penitence should proceed from the reconciliation of man with the universe" (Paz 27). The Mexican's loss of a sense of universal order is a natural part of his or her development. Paz argues that this development is incomplete: "Neither the Mexican nor the North American has achie

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sh. They experiment with beings who have lost their human qualities. . . . Murder is still a relationship in Mexico, and in this sense it has the same liberating significance as the fiesta. . . . (Paz 60-61). Paz argues here that the bureaucracy and technology of the North American separates him or her from life and death in a way that the poor Mexican is not separated from life 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 more complete, real and healthy than the North American. Paz also seems to be arguing that there is more chance for the Mexican and Mexico to regain a full connection to life and death than there is for the North American and North America to do so. In comparing the solitude of Mexico and the solitude of North America, Paz writes that a "stagnant pool" has more life in it than a "mirror" (Paz 27). However, even when he is writing favorably of Mexico in comparison to North America and its technology and its bourgeoisie, Paz keeps in mind that all people in this modern world are in a similar position when it comes to that feeling of solitude. Paz concentrates on the solitude of the Mexican and how he or she copes with

Category: Literature - O