Donis’s Sister/Wife Character Analysis

She is a nameless woman who lives with Donis, who is both her brother and her husband, in an abandoned house in Comala. Juan Preciado encounters Donis and his sister almost at random after meeting Damiana Cisneros and wandering off in search of a road out of Comala. Although she and Donis initially worry about Juan’s motives, Donis’s sister takes care of Juan for virtually all of his time in Comala, although this takes up a comparatively small portion of the novel itself (since he spends most of it sleeping). In this sense, she is the third of the four characters who act as symbolic substitutes for Juan’s mother, Dolores, in the novel (along with Eduviges Dyada, Damiana Cisneros, and Dorotea). Tortured by her incestuous relationship with Donis, Donis’s sister is convinced that her face is covered with purple marks that represent her sin. Out of shame and fear, she never leaves the house. But Juan doesn’t see these purple marks or understand why she hasn’t just left Comala. Symbolically, she and Donis represent a kind of distorted Adam and Eve—but instead of living in innocence in the Garden of Even, they’re living totally alone in the wasteland of Comala, imprisoned by their own sin. The fact that Pedro Páramo fathers virtually everyone in Comala suggests that Donis and his sister might actually be related because they are both his children. This means that, in turn, Juan is also their brother—and when he sleeps with Donis’s sister, he commits the same incest that initially repelled him. Arguably, this is Juan’s ultimate sin and the one that leads to his death. But Donis’s sister dies first: she melts into mud, reuniting with the earth and presumably becoming a ghost like the rest of Comala’s residents.