El Laberinto de la Soledad

Octavio Paz

(1950, Spanish; 1953, English translation) contents

There are three key moments in Mexican history: colonialism, independence and revolution.

In the Labyrinth of Solitude, Paz begins by focusing on the transitions from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood while making a crucial relationship between the personal and the universal by comparing these significant periods of change in ourselves to the lives of the nations to which we are born. He then proceeds to look at the identity --the bicultural heritage of Mexico-- to discern the obstacles, opportunities and omens that have left his nation to face the 21st century with a divided tradition, a pattern of recurrent revolutions, and an inability to translate their ideals and aspirations into a national effort for effective reforms.

"Self discovery is above all the realization that we are alone: it is an opening of an impalpable, transparent wall -- that of our consciousness -- between us and the world."

History

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His themes emerge that reveal:

• There are key moments in life that cause us to question our identity
• If countries are to grow, develop and become adult they too must question their purpose
• The history of all people, but especially of Mexico and the Caribbean, if not all the America's, is one of tragic incapacity to see the consequences of our actions
• Our identity is always an illusion and a reality mixed together because we, too are mixtures emerging out of the past.
• We either grow to recognize ourselves and our illusions, or we become victims of our own lies
• The world exists to trick us because our senses are limited and we are easily fooled by flattery
• The person we fool easiest is ourselves, unless we question and examine our lives (narcissistic behavior leads to tragedy).
• We have a responsibility to look the past squarely in the face and explain our relation to one another in light of our shared history.
• We often fail to distinguish between the illusion and the reality because we like what we see or imagine we see and this is the birth of a delusion
• Vasconcelos "wanted to base our school system on tradition the same way that the Revolution attempted to create a new economy on the basis of the ejido."
• We must take responsibility for learning from our mistakes and outgrow our biases or we remain infantile.

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Meaning | Main Themes | Four aspects of the Infantile | Interpretations

Four aspects of the Infantile

Infantile or responding as an infant would.

What does it mean to remain stuck in our infancy?

Four things:

1. We expect someone will always clean up our mess.
2. We anticipate that we will be nourished whenever we demand nourishment.
3. We expect that someone will always be bullied by our tantrums or our complaining to do what we want.
4. We think the world exists to meet our needs and we take from it without regard for our actions impacts on others, other resources, or the biological wealth we must have in order to thrive.

Meaning | Main Themes | Four aspects of the Infantile | Interpretations | text

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Narcissus

"he leans over the river of his consciousness, he asks himself if the face that appears in the there,... is his own."

Page 9.

This is an ancient Greek myth about a young, beautifully attractive person who upon looking into a pool of water, mistakes his reflection for a real person and he proceeds to fall in love with his own reflection, instead of the nymph echo who has professed her passion for him.

Paz alludes to the myth, and all creation myths as having a powerful hold on us because they are expressions of the human imagination created to make sense of the tragic circumstances in the world.

"But the adolescent cannot forget himself --when he succeeds in doing so, he is no longer and adolescent-- and we cannot escape the necessity of questioning and contemplating ourselves."

Page 11.

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Octavio Paz

Labyrinth book's contents

Juno Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

Meaning | Main Themes | Four aspects of the Infantile | Interpretations | text

Vocabulary:

impalpable, un-sensed, unseen, not able to fully apprehend and hence easily overlooked.

Ejido, common, pueblo land- a tradition dating pack to Pre columbian, Indian times.

Labyrinth, literally the lips of an opening, mouth of a cave, or entryway into a maze. Figuratively the world we create in our minds with our language, impressions, visualizations and imaginations due to the way we encounter the natural, physical and biological realities of existence.

In Knossos, on the Island of Crete is a great structure, palace, and fortress known as the Maze, or Labyrinth of Knossos,built by Daedalus and his son Icarus and where legend has it a beast lived that devoured all that were unable to exit from the maze or Labyrinth of no return.

Metaphorically speaking:

Time may be thought of as a maze from which there is no return. Language, as spoken words since these names emerge from between our lips may be thought of as a labyrinth, the maze of language can often confound the user who may, confuse the words with what they actually mean. Thus identity, that is definitive concepts of who we are, may also be the maze into which we lose our self, in an endless search for ways, forms, objects, or beliefs to define who we are.

Metaphor

Meaning | Main Themes | Four aspects of the Infantile | Interpretations | text

History

Mexican Masks

The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1950	History