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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. In Paz's example of the village near Mitla, how is their yearly income spent?
(a) On education.
(b) On funerals.
(c) On fiestas.
(d) On weddings and christenings.

2. In Paz's estimation, woman is a living representation of which of the following?
(a) The strangeness of the world.
(b) Life.
(c) Life overpowered by death.
(d) Man's incomplete nature.

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

4. Why did the sense of Mexicanism "float" in the air of Los Angeles?
(a) It did not mix with the North American efficiency or precision.
(b) People struggled to retain Mexican identity in a foreign land.
(c) It was an ethereal sense of nationality.
(d) No one truly knew that it meant to be Mexican.

5. How does solitude assume a purifying, almost purgative, quality for the Mexican?
(a) It is proof of future communion with others.
(b) It concentrates the Mexican's attention on the Divine rather than on the human.
(c) It serves to mitigate his guilt (a Catholicism concept).
(d) It wipes away his anger toward others.

Short Answer Questions

1. On which group of people were Paz's thoughts focused?

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

3. How is the myth of the "long-suffering Mexican woman" created?

4. How do Mexicans perceive an opening-up of one's self?

5. What is the advantage of the North American view of women in relation to the Spanish view?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. 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?

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

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

5. How did the Aztecs view sin? How does that idea explain the Conquest? What enormous change did Catholicism introduce?

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

7. Why does the Mexican love Form? Other than in personal relationships, how does that idea express itself?

8. What is the modern view of death? How is it dramatically different from the Aztec view?

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

10. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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