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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What connotation does the verb, chingar, carry?
(a) Mythical power.
(b) Violation.
(c) Failure.
(d) Disaster.

2. In Paz's opinion, when is a person most likely to see himself as precious and unique?
(a) At the end of his life.
(b) When he is in love.
(c) In childhood.
(d) During adolescence.

3. Through dissimulation, what does a Mexican attempt to do?
(a) Share his individuality with others to make it real.
(b) Withdraw from society to save his individuality.
(c) Become invisible and save his individuality.
(d) Become himself in contradistinction to others.

4. Paz discusses the result of persecution on the pachuco. What is that result?
(a) It makes him distrustful.
(b) It strengthens his anger.
(c) It makes him stronger.
(d) It breaks his solitude.

5. Above all other definitions, who is the Chingada?
(a) The representation of violated womanhood.
(b) The representation of virginity.
(c) A mythical mother.
(d) A living mother.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Paz, what is death in modern thought?

2. Why is death a part of the fiesta (Chapter Three)?

3. In their relation to their world, to whom does Paz compare Mexicans?

4. In Paz's estimation, what vital word has the Mexican forgotten?

5. Why are woman considered inferior people?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who represents the conflict that Mexicans have not been able to solve? What effect does that conflict have on their culture?

2. What were Paz's impressions of the United States? How does that contrast with the literature being written? In your mind, what accounts for the discrepancy?

3. How is the modern murderer different from a murderer of the past? How has modernity contributed to that difference?

4. Who is the Chingada? What relation does she hold to every Mexican, whether male or female?

5. What is the greatest horror that a worker suffers? Do you think that is true?

6. Who is the Virgin of Guadalupe? How is she an important part of Mexican identity?

7. What is the Mexican view of death? When does death become saddest?

8. In the author's parable, who is Nobody? Is it possible for Nobody to break the progression of his existence? Why or why not?

9. What is the Mexican's ideal of manliness? How does it affect his interactions with other people?

10. In Chapter Three, the following idea is presented: "There is nothing so joyous as a Mexican fiesta, but there is also nothing so sorrowful. Fiesta night is also a night of mourning" (Chapter 3, page 53). What does that mean?

(see the answer keys)

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