the labyrinth of solitude and other writings

Despite the fact that these essays are more a compilation than a deliberately-structured work of nonfiction analysis, all are connected as with an umbilical cord by the same underlying question: What is a Mexican? In examining the answers to that question - and, indeed, examining the question itself - Octavio Paz attempts to avoid what he terms 'the pitfalls of abstract humanism and illusions of a philosophy of Mexican-ness: the mask that changes into a face, the petrified face that changes into a mask' (216). The body of The Labyrinth of Solitude consists of nine essays produced on or before 1961.* Many of these essays were written as independent articles and, although Paz' writes in Spanish, some were produced directly for the English-language magazines Dissent and The New Yorker. This human approach also opens boundaries: although Octavio Paz is writing exclusively through the perspective of Mexican experience, one can easily imagine any other member of the global community finding questions and answers to their problems of identity as a people. His extremely human approach to independence, revolution, war, customs, religions, economy, and other aspects of national life make this book unusual and fascinating. Octavio Paz takes the reader through the history of Mexico - and the world - with remarkable intensity and speed. It is a soul-searching experience: enlightening, universal and passionate - the kind of reading which is very difficult to put aside once started. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.Octavio Paz' The Labyrinth of Solitude is a literary quest for the identity of Mexico and the Mexican people. Man is nostalgic and in search for communion. His nature – if that word can be used in reference to man, who has 'invented' himself by saying 'no' to nature – consists of his longing to realize himself in another.

Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another.

As Paz argues:Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. The essays are predominantly concerned with the theme of Mexican identity and demonstrate how, at the end of the existential labyrinth, there is a profound feeling of solitude. After 1975 some editions included the three-part essay 'Posdata', which discusses the massacre of hundreds of Mexican students in 1968. One of his most famous works, it consists of nine parts: 'The Pachuco and other extremes', 'Mexican Masks', 'The Day of the Dead', 'The Sons of La Malinche', 'The Conquest and Colonialism', 'From Independence to the Revolution', 'The Mexican Intelligence', 'The Present Day' and 'The Dialectic of Solitude'.

The Labyrinth of Solitude is a 1950 book-length essay by the Mexican poet Octavio Paz.

The labyrinth of solitude and other writings