The Labyrinth of Solitude

In “The Mexican Intelligentsia,” Paz examines how the Intelligentsia of Mexico—its writers, philosophers, and scholars—have contributed to Mexican political culture (151). After the Revolution, the intelligentsia were nearly all folded into official state functions pertaining to legal matters, education, policy making, as well as espionage and diplomacy. (158). On the one hand, this freed them up to continue their work. Some sought to interpret Mexican culture itself. Samuel Ramos’s Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico offers an analysis of the various metaphorical “masks” worn by Mexicans, and the integral role that these play in the construction of Mexican personality. Jorge Cuesta’s influential studies of Mexican traditions argue that Mexico seeks to be self-creating and, in so doing, always repudiates its past.

Alfonso Reyes was a writer for whom language itself was not only an artistic problem, but a historical and ethical problem as well: The Mexican writer thus has a duty to seek out “soul” of the nation and remain faithful to the Mexican people. This means developing a literature which expresses the fundamental tensions of Mexican life: “The life and history of our people demand the creation of a form that will express this demand and that will also transcend it without betraying it.