• selections of Octavio Paz's El Laberinto de la Soledad. "Day of the Dead"
"Dia de los Muertos"
• selections of Octavio Paz's El Laberinto de la Soledad.
p. 47.
A taste of Paz's prose | The dialectical structure | History
"the present in which the past and the future are reconciled, in which the individual is at once, dissolved & redeemed."
"In these ceremonies, – national, local, union, or family‚– the Mexican opens up to the outside world. All of them give an opportunity to reveal himself and to talk to God, the nation, friends, and family. In these days, the Mexican yells, sings, and throws firecrackers. He unloads his soul."
"get drunk on noise"
p. 49.
Some phrases from Paz on the meaning of dying.
"The opposition between life and death was not so absolute to the ancient Mexicans as it is to us. Life extended into death and vice versa. Death was not the natural end of life but one phase of an intricate cycle. Life, death and resurrection were stages in a cosmic process which repeated itself continuously."
(pp. 54-55)
"Death defines life.
"Death is a mirror which reflects vain gesticulations of the living."
"Our deaths illuminate our lives."
"Each of us dies the death he or she is looking for, the death we have made for our self.
Death, like life, is not transferable"
"Everything attracts its opposite."
p. 50.
"Tell me how you die and I will tell you who you are,"
p. 54.
Mexico's indigenous people's conceptions of life and death.
Religion and destiny ruled their lives, as morality and freedom rule ours."
p. 55.
The languages of the dead: Nahuatl (spoken by over 1.5 million Mexican people)
is the origin of these words:
Death also lacks meaning for the contemporary Mexican. It is no longer a transition, an access to another life more alive than our own. But although we do not view death as a transcendence, we have not eliminated it from our daily lives. The word death is not pronounced . . . because it burns the lips."
"is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love."
p. 57.
Festivals, and Mexican identity.
"history a true poem in search of fulfillment..."
Sons of La Malinche, p. 84.
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