The Labyrinth of Solitude

Paz describes “communion” as an overarching goal of human existence, and it appears consistently throughout the essay. Our desire for communion has roots in our individual natality (we desire, in some sense, to return to the security of the womb), as well our collective history (a longing to return to the safety and conviviality of simpler, primal communities). Politically, our longing for community often expresses itself through utopian hopes for the return of a lost “golden age” that will replace and redeem the degraded state of the present. In our individual lives, we often seek communion through erotic love, intoxication, or communal gatherings.

Criollos are Central and South Americans of Spanish descent. As Paz notes in “From Independence to the Revolution,” Mexican criollos played a different role in the New Spain Independence Movement than those in South America. In the latter case, they were agents of revolution who sought to extend the feudal system that prevailed within colonial New Spain. In the former case, they were only a single faction in a struggle that largely pitted working poor against the ruling class.

The term dialectic figures most prominently in the final chapter of the essay, “The Dialectic of Solitude,” though dialectical thinking runs throughout the entirety of the work. In short, dialectic refers to a way of thinking or acting that is characterized by a “back and forth” movement between opposites. It is associated with the Absolute Idealism of German philosopher GWF Hegel, who claimed that history (and indeed, all reality, the “Absolute”) was a dialectical process through which opposites like mind and world, particular and universal, individual and community could be reconciled. In Paz’s usage, “dialectic” describes the continual oscillation between solitude and communion that pervades all human life and history.

Fiesta is the Spanish word for a festival, most commonly the feast-day of a Catholic Saint. These are typically large, raucous outdoor occasions. According to Paz—particularly in Chapter 3—the fiesta is an occasion for Mexicans to break out of their solitude through intoxication, dancing, singing, and even the occasional outburst of violence.

Machismo is the Spanish term for an exaggerated, dominating masculinity. In Chapter 2, Paz argues that machismo is a pose adopted by Mexican men to withdraw into solitude, insulating themselves from a hostile world, and to dominate those around them. Machismo is the flip-side of a deep and pervasive misogyny: Women are viewed as merely passive, the means toward realizing the will and desires of the active, domineering macbo.

Mestizos are Latin American persons of both Spanish and indigenous descent. In colonial times, mestizos occupied the middle position between European settles and indigenous peoples. Paz suggests in Chapter 2 that Mexican culture of self-concealment and dissimulation may in part be rooted in mestizo (and Indigenous) persons’ need to conceal their true desires and intentions from their Spanish rulers. In addition, Paz suggests that the figure of the mestizo is emblematic of the “hybrid” character of Mexican identity as such.

Pachucos were members of Mexican American street gangs associated with jazz, swing dancing, and “zoot suits.” Paz argues in Chapter 1, that pachucos exaggerate their behavior and fashion to reject both their Mexican roots and North American milieu. This is also a form of “masking” to conceal and protect themselves from a hostile culture. At the same time, this withdrawal into “solitude” makes the pachuco a target of police action and violence. In the end, this gives the pachuco a place in the society that he rejects, and which rejects him by making him a “victim” or a criminal, thus providing him an ironic form of “communion.”