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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. What is the Mexican concept of work?
2. Why are people sad if a person dies badly (Chapter Three)?
3. When Paz first arrived in the United States, what surprised him most about the people?
4. How does the pachuco present himself to the people around him?
5. When Aztec victims were sacrificed, why did their deaths lack personal meaning?
Short Essay Questions
1. 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?
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. What is the greatest horror that a worker suffers? Do you think that is true?
4. Who is the Chingada? What relation does she hold to every Mexican, whether male or female?
5. When does Paz say that a nation questions itself? Is it necessary?
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. According to Alarcon, why does the liar lie to himself? Given what you know of the Mexican mindset, does that make sense?
8. What is the modern view of death? How is it dramatically different from the Aztec view?
9. What is dissimulation? How does it compare to lying? How does it affect the Mexican's idea of himself?
10. How is the modern murderer different from a murderer of the past? How has modernity contributed to that difference?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Who is the Chingada? What roots does she have in Aztec religion and history? Like her opposite, the Virgin of Guadalupe, is redemption possible?
Essay Topic 2
In modern Mexico, what are the contrasting ways of thinking (pg 119-20)? In that context, is Spanish heritage good? How do those two mindsets continue to influence current politics and thought?
Essay Topic 3
What is the Mexican view of privacy? Why does Paz defend it at such cost? What part does lying play in his defense? Is that accepted?
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This section contains 1,780 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |
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