In Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo creates an array of characters who live in a reality different than the one that exists within the framework of their world. Specifically, the realities of Pedro Páramo, Susana San Juan, and Juan Preciado are altered to the point where their searches for meaning are developed and shaped by their varying perceptions of the events happening around them. Additionally, these altered realities aren’t completely psychological states of mind--the town of Comala is actually filled with supernatural elements that contribute to the unsteady nature of reality and make people who are just introduced to Comala (Juan Preciado and the reader) question what is real and what is not. The mostly unintentional alteration of reality can either damage or enrich the individual’s search for meaning.
A central figure to the plot, without the reader ever getting a glimpse into his mind, Pedro Páramo exists in a reality where he is the most powerful person. The Media Luna has always been his and his control has always reached beyond its borders and extended to the people of Comala despite the fact that he has done very little to earn his place or arrogance. In Fulgor Sedano’s second interaction with Pedro Páramo and his first interaction where Pedro Páramo is in a position of authority, Fulgor says “[w]ho did the boy think he was to speak to [me] like that? … So the very first thing, this kid, who had never stepped foot on the Media Luna or done a lick of work, was talking to [me] as if [I] were a hired hand” (19). As the most powerful person in the secluded town of Comala, Pedro Páramo is in a perilous position--there is no one able to check his power. There is no one who he can see as an equal. This results in him facing socia...
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...s to find his father, without achieving that he fails to find peace or meaning.
Living in an alternate reality provides further context to a character's search for meaning; it can be used to either strengthen or weaken a character’s resolves. These different realities exist in part because of the changing structure of time and Comala. Rulfo disregards the time during which a person lived, rather he looks at the effects the person left behind. For this reason, reality is not a constant. The impressions or “murmurs” a person leaves behind after they move on to either Purgatory or Hell in Comala create a complicated web of relationships that contribute to alternative perceptions of reality.
Works Cited
1. Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Páramo. Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. New York: Grove, 1994. Print.
2. Paz, Octavio. The Labyrinth of Solitude. New York: Grove, 1961. Print.
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