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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 is the advantage of the North American view of women in relation to the Spanish view?
(a) It credits women with a cosmic role.
(b) It does not objectify women.
(c) It does not deify women.
(d) It recognizes women's place in the world.

2. What did Paz find in the actions and faces of North Americans?
(a) A faith in their society and confidence in its survival.
(b) A faith in man's intrinsic goodness and its effects on their culture.
(c) An unrealistic optimism about the future.
(d) A fear about the survival of their society.

3. On which group of people were Paz's thoughts focused?
(a) The Mexican nation as a whole.
(b) Those who are conscious of themselves as Mexicans.
(c) Those who are seeking a better philosophy as Mexicans.
(d) Those who are focused on making Mexico a part of the world.

4. What does the pachuco represent in Paz's writing?
(a) The typical Mexican living in North American culture.
(b) The modern-day religious saint.
(c) One step along the path that a Mexican can take.
(d) One extreme at which the Mexican can arrive.

5. What analogy does Paz use to explain Mexico's history?
(a) A child without a family.
(b) A man searching for his wife.
(c) A man searching for his parents.
(d) A child without a future.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the book's argument, what happens when a Mexican woman is passive?

2. How does Paz differentiate between views of the body in Mexico and North America?

3. Why did the sense of Mexicanism "float" in the air of Los Angeles?

4. In his obsession with hygiene, work, and health, what does the North American miss?

5. What is the difference between the Mexican killer and the modern one?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is left of the colonial world? Are those remnants the best or the worst parts that could be left behind?

2. What is the character of the Mexican's solitude? How does it differ from the solitude of the North American?

3. What is the origin of the pachuco? How does that characterization prepare the reader for the rest of the book?

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

5. When does Paz say that a nation questions itself? Is it necessary?

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

7. How does Mexico's poverty relate to the fiesta? What French interpretation did it inspire?

8. 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?

9. "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?

10. What happens during the fiesta? What is the emotional result?

(see the answer keys)

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