Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. According to Paz, why does the liar tell lies to himself?
2. In the book's argument, what happens when a Mexican woman is passive?
3. In Latin America, what was the importance of Jose Gorostiza's poem, Muerte sin Fin?
4. How are the worlds of terrorism and mass production similar to each other? (Chapter Four).
5. What happens when the Mexican dissimulates?
Short Essay Questions
1. What is the Mexican's ideal of manliness? How does it affect his interactions with other people?
2. What is dissimulation? How does it compare to lying? How does it affect the Mexican's idea of himself?
3. Who is the Virgin of Guadalupe? How is she an important part of Mexican identity?
4. What group of people did the author have in mind as he wrote the book? How and why did those people become important to him?
5. How is the modern murderer different from a murderer of the past? How has modernity contributed to that difference?
6. "The pachuco has lost his whole inheritance: Language, religion, customs, and beliefs. He is left with only a body and a soul with which to confront the elements" (Chapter One, pg 15). Is that a true statement?
7. How does Paz explain the Mexican woman's role in society? How does that strip her of her personality?
8. What happens during the fiesta? What is the emotional result?
9. According to Alarcon, why does the liar lie to himself? Given what you know of the Mexican mindset, does that make sense?
10. How does North American culture view the pachuco? Does the pachuco accept or reject that culture's perception of him?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
In Paz's arguments, how important is the Mexican sense of place? What affects it? What is its most important aspect? Explain the sense of place in the greater context of the Mexican mindset that Paz presents throughout the book.
Essay Topic 2
What are the gender roles explained throughout the book? Given the culture and the time, what are the gender expectations? Who acts against those expectations?
Essay Topic 3
What are the varieties of chingar that the author explains? Does that help your comprehension of the word? Does it enrich your understanding of Mexican culture?
This section contains 1,801 words (approx. 7 pages at 300 words per page) |