1. Give a summary of the Post-Revolutionary Mexican School of Expression

2. What was the contradiction between Rivera's political position in Mexico and his mural painting in the United States?

3. What did the lecturer mean by saying that in The Labyrinth of Solitude Paz ' style is never direct?

4. Why does Paz prefer poetry to prose?

5. What kind of history does Paz prefer?

6. According to Paz, how can a culture be both universal and local?

7. What are Paz' two mythological framing references for the book?

8. How does Paz describe the Pachuco?

9. How does Paz use the United States to explain Mexico?

10. Despite the differences between the U.S. and Mexico, what do they have in common?

11. According to Paz, why do Mexicans put on mask?

12. Why do Mexicans pretend to be something they are not?

13. According to Paz, why does love fail between Mexicans?

14. Why do Fiestas deny society as an ordered system?

15. How are fiestas thought to be liberating and regenerative?

16. According to Paz, why do Mexican fiestas fail to produce positive results?

17. Why was death meaningful in both Aztec and Christian religions?

18. What is Paz' opinion of death in modern societies?

19. What use does Paz see in studying a society's forbidden words.

20. What one word does Paz focus on and how does it fit into what he has said that for Mexicans life is combat?

21. What links the Gran Chingón and the Conquistador?

22. Why do Mexicans prefer Christ to God the Father in their religious practice?

23. What do Christ and Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor, have in common?

24. What is the difference between the Virgin of Guadalupe and the "Chingada"?

25. Who was La Malinche?

26. Why does Paz say that if Mexicans reject Cortes and the Malinche that they reject their origins?

27. How did the Aztecs interpret the arrival of the Spaniards according to Paz.

28. What did Spain bring to Mexico that was of benefit to the Indians?

29. What kind of religious practice did the Indians create within Christianity?

30. Who was Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz?

31. How does Sor Juana's fate compare with Cuauhtémoc's?

32. What are some of the key elements in Paz' poetic sub-text in the The Labyrinth of Solitude?

33. Discuss some of those poetic elements and how they work to create an alternative way of experiencing the text to the prosaic reading of information.

34. When seen through the poetic sub-text, what is the core of Paz' imagery?

35. How can we say that in his style Paz is Mexican in his own terms?