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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. How does Paz differentiate between views of the body in Mexico and North America?
(a) Mexicans are ashamed of their bodies, while North Americans live with physical exuberance.
(b) Mexicans live with abandon while North Americans are prudent.
(c) Mexicans are afraid of their bodies, while North Americans are modest.
(d) Mexicans are modest, while North Americans are afraid of their bodies.

2. What familial relationship does Paz equate with solitude?
(a) Having no siblings.
(b) Having no male relatives.
(c) Being childless.
(d) Being an orphan.

3. How did Paz consider his philosophical questions?
(a) As the only means to find answers.
(b) As meaningful only if they addressed the question of Mexican identity.
(c) As a waste of time.
(d) As an excuse for not facing reality.

4. What masculine trait enters into the idea of feminine modesty?
(a) Love.
(b) Vanity.
(c) Protection.
(d) Strength.

5. How does a man become "like the angels" (Chapter Three, page 61)?
(a) By valuing life to its final moment.
(b) By opening fully to death, as well as to life.
(c) By entrusting everything to God.
(d) By running from death to an embracement of life.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the Spanish view of women in contrast to the Mexican?

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

3. How does solitude assume a purifying, almost purgative, quality for the Mexican?

4. Why is the fiesta, at its core, a revolution?

5. In Paz's thought, what does a study of the great myths reveal?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Paz explain the Mexican woman's role in society? How does that strip her of her personality?

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

3. According to Alarcon, why does the liar lie to himself? Given what you know of the Mexican mindset, does that make sense?

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

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

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

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

8. "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?

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

10. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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