LABYRINTH OF SOLITUDE

What is this labyrinth Paz refers to? "It is an ancient metaphor, translating the literal (Labi) into the figurativeaPaz calls it 'one of the most fertile & meaningful mythical symbolsa.the object of restoring health and freedom to a people at the center of a sacred area.'" (Krauze 1998 1) Paz is writing about his people of Mexico, and their expulsion, literally, from a meaningful world. He does not really put the blame on the rest of the world. Instead, he is waiting for "the hero's return either to save or redeem his city or to found a new one" (Paz 1985 208) Who is Octavio Paz, and why is he so concerned with the fate of his native people? For one thing, he seems to represent the conscience of Mexico, urging them to be who they are and not have any inhibitions or self-consciousness about their Mexican heritage and traditions.

Octavio Paz won the Nobel price for Literature in 1990. He deserved it. Even though he was a Mexican writer, his essays and poetry go beyond language barriers and ethnic barriers. As he himself said in his Nobel acceptance speech: "Languages are vast realities that transcend those political and historical entities we call nations" (Paz 1990 1) And yet the nine essays in this book are so poignantly Mexican. They are aimed at Mexican readers, first and foremost. He tries to point out the marked differences between "Americans" and "Mexicans," in terms of two cultures, which can (but not always do) coexist. "He seeks

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Los Angeles, with more than a million Mexican-born inhabitants. He does not seem to disparage them, since they have continued to uphold their heritage and tradition, even as their children become multilingual. Having studied a little about the pachucos, and the dangerous riots that happened in 1943 in Los Angeles, and the Zoot suits they wore and the dances they attended and the gangs they formed, it seems hard to believe that all this was just so they could "secretly" enter American society. From their appearance and behavior, it was just the opposite: they were exhibiting and proudly preening their differences from North Americans. In the final essay, The Dialectic of Solitude, Paz seems to be urging young Mexicans to get over their xenophobia, and move out to experience the world, as well as recognizing the status of women as (nearly) Man's equal. It is interesting that in his definition of "solitude, Paz claims that "solitude is not a characteristic of maturity" (Paz 1985 204) This may be the reason that he uses adolescence as a symbol throughout many of his thought. The idea, one can suppose, is that by getting adolescents to underst6and and adapt to the need not only for TWO cultures, but for cross cultures as well, t

Category: Literature - L