OCTAVIO PAZ

   Octavio Paz, who seeks for the identity of Mexicans in his study entitled “El laberinto de la soledad”, does not need to look for his own identity as one of the prominent Latin American poets and essayists in the twentieth century. Octavio Paz was born in 1914 and died in 1998 in Mexico City. On his father's side, his grandfather was an unmistakable liberal erudite and one of the first writers to compose a novel with an explicitly Indian topic. Because of his grandfather's broad library, Paz came into ahead of schedule contact with writing. Like his grandfather, his father likewise was a dynamic political writer who, together with other dynamic scholars, joined the agrarian uprisings headed by Emiliano Zapata.

    His administration as a Mexican negotiator took him to France where he composed eminent paper, “El Laberinto De La Soledad”, examining the Mexican individuals by method for their society and history. He likewise served as Mexican minister to India from 1962-1968, where he composed The Grammarian Monkey and East Slope, two critical works in his vocation. He surrendered from Mexico's discretion in 1968 in light of the fact that he restricted the administration severely stifling an understudy exhibit at the Olympic Gamed in Tlateloco. After the 1968 disaster, Paz changed his perspectives about Mexico and added the Posdata to El laberinto de la soledad.

    A noteworthy exposition beautician, Paz has composed a productive group of articles, including a few book-length studies, in poetics, artistic and workmanship feedback, and on Mexican history, legislative issues and society.

 ‘’El Laberinto De La Soledad’’ - 1950

      Octavio Paz accepts that the Mexican society, termed "mexicanidad," glides buzzing around in America  "porque no se mezcla ni se funde con el otro mundo… no acaba de ser, no acaba de desaparecer" (Paz, El laberinto de la soledad, 34). The purpose of his collection of prose expositions entitled El laberinto de la soledad is to discover a character for the Mexican individuals so they will no more buoy in limbo pondering who they are. Paz tries to answer the repeating inquiry that still frequents Mexicans today in the quest for personality by method for an extreme social and sociological investigation, an examination of Mexican and North American disposition, lastly, with the contention that the occasions in Mexico's history have had critical impact on the sentiments of isolation and mediocrity that portray the Mexican individuals.

     Solitude is the reason the Mexican people have suffered as a result of losing contact with the rest of the world, and most importantly, with themselves and their past.  A central theme in “El laberinto de la soledad” is the comparison of the closed culture of Mexico to the open culture of North America."Máscaras Mexicanas," the title of section II, further shows this want to remain hidden from the world.  By residing behind a metaphorical mask, the Mexicans become separated from their own identity and become distant.  The more distant they become, the more solitude bestows upon the Mexicans.

      Paz looks at Mexican and North American mentality on specific issues to show why Mexico may feel so separated from the outside world. Mexicans see authenticity in America as cynicism and depend on dream rather than reality and legends instead of verifiable records. They take joy in telling lies in light that it creates a fantasy.

     Paz felt his distinctness as a young child just as the pachucos in America today represent the segment of Mexico’s population so fed up with the solitude and separation from the world that they cut off all ties of Mexican heritage and in an outward expression of discontent, strive to create a new culture.  Ironically, in attempting to distinguish themselves from Mexican culture, the pachucos have come to represent many Americans’ perceptions of who Mexico’s people are.

      Paz utilizes the term hermetismo to characterize the way Mexicans close off the outer world, contending that Mexicans bring their isolation upon themselves and become loners, metaphorically and actually. Mimetismo is an alternate impact of the isolation, coming about as the great manifestation of "disimularse" or concealing oneself. Mexicans endeavoring to copy parts of different societies, for example, occasion festivals, apparel, and general lifestyle, including the pachucos, represent the social idea of mimetismo. Paz expects that mimetismo will in the end eradicate Mexican society and custom.  Solitude has captured the Mexican people, and it seems that they are trapped within this labyrinth.  Any attempts at breaking away from the solitude, such as the pachuco, or opening up to external society with mimetismo, only sever connections to the cultural past and take Mexico further away from its goal of finding its identity.

       Paz concurs that one of the reason for the isolation of Mexico is the smothered feeling of mediocrity Mexicans immediate at the United States. On the other hand, he contends all through the article that the topic of sub-par quality is less determined in examination to their northern neighbors, to the extent that it is a result of two thousand years of historical events.

      Although present-day Mexico may not understand it, their mediocrity originates from two centuries of history, not just from the current circumstance. Paz tries to clear this up to pursuers all through “El laberinto de la soledad”.

      With a history of command and intercession by a large number of societies, it is not abnormal that the Mexicans think that it hard to characterize their birthplaces. Mexico accuses the Spanish for their absence of character, however Paz accentuates in ''El laberinto de la soledad'' that it is natural that the populace of Mexico see the majority of the critical chronicled occasions of their past so they will come to comprehend their present. As he states in his speech about searching for the present, “the feeling of separation is universal and not peculiar to Spanish Americans…this never-healing wound is the unfathomable depth of every man.  All our ventures and exploits, all our acts and dreams, are bridges designed to overcome the separation and reunite us with the world and our fellow beings” .
       In this exposition, Paz faultlessly exhibits that Mexicans are experiencing a character emergency and how their issue with personality just builds their isolation and second rate quality to the outer world. Mexicans who subscribe to mimetismo and attempt to duplicate different societies not just demonstrate their sentiments of mediocrity around the United States, additionally evacuate any plausibility of sparing their Mexican legacy. The populace of Mexico must  know and comprehend their history with the goal that they will know and comprehend their present; else, they will fall further into isolation and second rate quality.