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This essay examines how discourses of civility and proper conduct are used to undermine or assert Mexican national sovereignty. Zorrilla’s criticism of Mexican affairs during the time of the Second Empire (1864–1867), set out in his Drama del Alma. Algo sobre Méjico y Maximiliano (1867), focuses on daily improprieties as synecdoche for the inability of the Mexican people to appreciate the chivalric Emperor Maximilian. By implication, Zorrilla argues that Mexico’s failures as a nation can be tied to Mexican incivility. In contrast, Joaquín M. Guadalajara y Cosío argues that Zorrilla’s behaviour, like that of so many Europeans in Mexico, is impolite; further-more, his critique of Mexican affairs does not respect codes of proper behaviour.
