week 8

“They nullify [Nobody], cancel him out, turn him to nothingness. It is futile for Nobody to talk, to publish books, to paint pictures, to stand on his head. Nobody is the blankness in our looks the pauses in our conversations, the reserve in our silences. He is the name we always and inevitable forget, the eternal absentee, the guest we never invite, the emptiness we can never fill. He is an omission, and yet he is forever present. He is our secret, our crime, and our remorse” (Paz, Mexican Masks, pg. 25).

Paz in his essay, Mexican Masks, explains the barriers that are common in Mexican society in particular, but the world at large as well, figurative masks. By putting on a figurative mask you become a nobody. Nobodies lose their ability to create, to express, and to contribute to society. However, simultaneously they also become protected. “He is an omission, and yet he is forever present”. nobodies exist but cannot be harmed, and they cannot contribute. They merely exist. 

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

This passage from Paz’s essay reminds me of Emily Dickinson’s Poem “I am nobody! Who are you?”. Just like Paz explains that “they nullify him” and “cancel him out”, Dickinson writes that “They’d banish us” for being “nobody”. Yet, there is something bad about being a somebody. A somebody is the opposite of a nobody, they are known, understood and recognized. The speaker states “How dreary to be somebody!....To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog”. These lines express the filthiness of the somebodies. A bog is a swamp. It is wet, dirty, gross, and dangerous. Therefore, by becoming a somebody one exposes their identity to a bog—a public full of filthiness and peril.

            Both authors make the point that there is a negative impact of revealing oneself to public society. They both seem to argue that by putting on a figurative mask and becoming a nobody provides some level of protection from the world. The purpose of wearing a mask is to hide one’s face. By covering your face you hide your expressions, thoughts and emotions, in essence your identity. There is an inherent paradox in becoming a nobody, by putting up a wall between yourself and the world you are protected from the dangers of exposing yourself, but at the same time you lose freedom of expression.