Self-Preservation
Self-preservation is a dominant theme throughout the essays. Paz approach the ideas both as a function of biological instinct and as an attitude of confrontation which people choose. Both aspects are necessary for an understanding of self-preservation. From La Malinche to the Pachucos, Mexican history is full of examples of people who have gradually become entrenched in isolation due to acts of self-preservation. What begins, in the case of both Malinche and the Pachucos, as instinct to protect oneself -- a subject explored in depth in "Mexican Mask" -- quickly develops into a mentality of confrontation. Due to past hurts, people reject others' efforts to be in community with them. To be known, while the human's most profound desire, is to be vulnerable and thus incompatible with the theory of self-preservation.
Division
Talking about Mexico, Paz necessarily talks about the U.S. as well. He has a heart for the border, for a region in both countries which most clearly illustrates the unavoidable condition of the liminal. Paz identifies how people create division among themselves, whether through rivalry between villages or through historical traditions. As an example, Paz addresses the American adherence to Calvinism, the ideology of the Founding Fathers, and Victorian sensibility even though those belief systems have called for an utter rejection of "the other." He accuses Americans of striving for division instead of peace. The division between cultures, however, is necessarily two-sided. Paz identifies the Mexican contribution as this previously displayed attitude of self-preservation which drives away the outsider and rejects the new.
Liminality
Especially in "The Dialectic of Solitude," Paz devotes his essays to the idea of liminality. He calls the human experience one of unavoidable uncertainty because life exists between the two unknown states of birth and death. The borders of human experience are clear but untouchable. Since the mind is self-contained, it is constantly longing for understanding and to be understood. The cruel irony of existence is that one only wants to share experience because one knows one is alone. The curse of consciousness is solitude, as every person belongs to the same species but remains entirely individual.
Additionally, the liminal space of the Mexico-U.S. border plays a huge role in the historical sections of the book. Paz explores how a physical border is just the manifestation of the emotional borders which people everywhere place. In response to the physical border, however, entire classes of liminal people have been created. Children are born on both sides who belong to neither and thus go through life lacking identity and community.
