Pedro Páramo

by

Juan Rulfo

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Pedro Páramo Character Analysis

Pedro Páramo is one of the three protagonists of the novel along with Juan Preciado (Pedro’s son) and Susana San Juan (Pedro’s childhood sweetheart). He can alternately be viewed as a villainous embodiment of pure evil, a godlike paternal figure, or an unlikely protagonist in the novel that’s named after him and largely structured around Juan Preciado’s search for him. When Pedro’s father, Lucas Páramo, is brutally and senselessly killed at a friend’s wedding, the young Pedro seeks revenge by murdering everyone who attended the event. Then, he takes control of his father’s Media Luna Ranch and sets out to accumulate money, power, land, and women in Comala by any means necessary. He marries Dolores Preciado to cancel his family’s debts and steal her land, orders his henchman Fulgor Sedano to kill innocent farmers like Toribio Aldrete over phony lawsuits, and even bribes militia leaders to protect his interests during the Mexican Revolution. Eventually, Comala literally becomes Pedro’s family and personal property: he not only owns everything in town, but also fathers basically all the children born there (although he recognizes none of them except Miguel). But he is still not satisfied: he remains fixated on Susana San Juan, whom he desperately wants to marry. She agrees but turns out to be trapped in her own mind, haunted by some past trauma and unable to communicate with him. Pedro is devastated: he was fundamentally wrong to think that true love could be bought and sold. After Susana’s death, he spends the rest of his life sitting in his chair, dead inside and frozen in place like a rock, watching Comala die before him. He dies two slightly different deaths in the novel’s last two fragments: in one, Pedro’s illegitimate son Abundio Martínez kills him in a desperate rage, and in the other, Pedro simply “collapse[s] like a pile of rocks.” This refers to his name, which is significant: Pedro (Peter in English) comes from the word for “rock,” and a páramo is a moor or barren plain. It’s no coincidence that Pedro turns Comala’s fertile valley into an arid wasteland by the end of the novel and himself turns into stone.

Pedro Páramo Quotes in Pedro Páramo

The Pedro Páramo quotes below are all either spoken by Pedro Páramo or refer to Pedro Páramo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Death, Hope, and Despair Theme Icon
).
Fragments 1-12, Pages 3-24 Quotes

I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived there. It was my mother who told me. And I had promised her that after she died I would go see him. I squeezed her hands as a sign I would do it. She was near death, and I would have promised her anything. “Don’t fail to go see him,” she had insisted. “Some call him one thing, some another. I’m sure he will want to know you.” At the time all I could do was tell her I would do what she asked, and from promising so often I kept repeating the promise even after I had pulled my hands free of her death grip.
Still earlier she had told me: “Don’t ask him for anything. Just what’s ours. What he should have given me but never did… Make him pay, son, for all those years he put us out of his mind.”

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s hot here,” I said.
“You might say. But this is nothing,” my companion replied. “Try to take it easy. You’ll feel it even more when we get to Comala. That town sits on the coals of the earth, at the very mouth of hell. They say that when people from there die and go to hell, they come back for a blanket.”
“Do you know Pedro Páramo?” I asked.
I felt I could ask because I had seen a glimmer of goodwill in his eyes.
“Who is he?” I pressed him.
“Living bile,” was his reply.
And he lowered his stick against the burros for no reason at all, because they had been far ahead of us, guided by the descending trail.

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Abundio Martínez (The Burro Driver) (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

Water dripping from the roof tiles was forming a hole in the sand of the patio. Plink! plink! and then another plink! as drops struck a bobbing, dancing laurel leaf caught in a crack between the adobe bricks. The storm had passed. Now an intermittent breeze shook the branches of the pomegranate tree, loosing showers of heavy rain, spattering the ground with gleaming drops that dulled as they sank into the earth. The hens, still huddled on their roost, suddenly flapped their wings and strutted out to the patio, heads bobbing, pecking worms unearthed by the rain. As the clouds retreated the sun flashed on the rocks, spread an iridescent sheen, sucked water from the soil, shone on sparkling leaves stirred by the breeze.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo, Susana San Juan, Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Related Symbols: Rain and Water
Page Number: 11-12
Explanation and Analysis:

Hundreds of meters above the clouds, far, far above everything, you are hiding, Susana. Hiding in God’s immensity, behind His Divine Providence where I cannot touch you or see you, and where my words cannot reach you.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Susana San Juan
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 13-23, Pages 25-41 Quotes

“Tomorrow morning we’ll begin to set our affairs in order. We’ll begin with the Preciado women. You say it’s them we owe the most?”
“Yes. And them we’ve paid the least. Your father always left the Preciados to the last. I understand that one of the girls, Matilde, went to live in the city. I don’t know whether it was Guadalajara or Colima. And that Lola, that is, doña Dolores, has been left in charge of everything. You know, of don Enmedio’s ranch. She’s the one we have to pay.”
“Then tomorrow I want you to go and ask for Lola’s hand.”
“What makes you think she’d have me? I’m an old man.”
“You’ll ask her for me. After all, she’s not without her charms. Tell her I’m very much in love with her. Ask her if she likes the idea.”

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Fulgor Sedano (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 24-36, Pages 41-61 Quotes

“Why did you come here?”
“I told you that at the very beginning. I came to find Pedro Páramo, who they say was my father. Hope brought me here.”
“Hope? You pay dear for that. My illusions made me live longer than I should have. And that was the price I paid to find my son, who in a manner of speaking was just one more illusion. Because I never had a son.”

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Dorotea (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 37-46, Pages 61-85 Quotes

“We live in a land in which everything grows, thanks to God’s providence; but everything that grows is bitter. That is our curse.”
“You’re right, Father. I’ve tried to grow grapes over in Comala. They don’t bear. Only guavas and oranges: bitter oranges and bitter guavas. I’ve forgotten the taste of sweet fruit. Do you remember the China guavas we had in the seminary? The peaches? The tangerines that shed their skin at a touch? I brought seeds here. A few, just a small pouch. Afterward, I felt it would have been better to leave them where they were, since I only brought them here to die.”
“And yet, Father, they say that the earth of Comala is good. What a shame the land is all in the hands of one man.”

Related Characters: Father Rentería (speaker), Contla’s Priest (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Related Symbols: Rain and Water
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

I waited thirty years for you to return, Susana. I wanted to have it all. Not just part of it, but everything there was to have, to the point that there would be nothing left for us to want, no desire but your wishes. How many times did I ask your father to come back here to live, telling him I needed him. I even tried deceit.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Juan Preciado, Susana San Juan, Bartolomé San Juan, Dorotea
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 47-59, Pages 86-108 Quotes

What can I do for you?” Pedro Páramo repeated. “Like you see, we’ve taken up arms.”
“And?”
“And nothing. That’s it. Isn’t that enough?”
“But why have you done it?”
“Well, because others have done the same. Didn’t you know? Hang on a little till we get our instructions, and then we’ll tell you why. For now we’re just here.”
“l know why,” another said. “And if you want, I’ll tell you why. We’ve rebelled against the government and against people like you because we’re tired of putting up with you. Everyone in the government is a crook, and you and your kind are nothing but a bunch of lowdown bandits and slick thieves. And as for the governor himself, I won’t say nothing, because what we have to say to him we’ll say with bullets.”
“How much do you need for your revolution?” Pedro Páramo asked. “Maybe I can help you.”

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker)
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 60-68, Pages 109-124 Quotes

People began arriving from other places, drawn by the endless pealing. They came from Contla, as if on a pilgrimage. And even farther. A circus showed up, who knows from where, with a whirligig and flying chairs. And musicians. First they came as if they were onlookers, but after a while they settled in and even played concerts. And so, little by little, the event turned into a fiesta. Comala was bustling with people, boisterous and noisy, just like the feast days when it was nearly impossible to move through the village.
The bells fell silent, but the fiesta continued. There was no way to convince people that this was an occasion for mourning. Nor was there any way to get them to leave. Just the opposite, more kept arriving.
[…]
Don Pedro spoke to no one. He never left his room. He swore to wreak vengeance on Comala:
“I will cross my arms and Comala will die of hunger.”
And that was what happened.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Susana San Juan
Page Number: 116-117
Explanation and Analysis:

“I need money to bury my wife,” he said. “Can you help me?”
Damiana Cisneros prayed: “Deliver us, O God, from the snares of the Devil.” And she thrust her hands toward Abundio, making the sign of the cross.
Abundio Martinez saw a frightened woman standing before him, making a cross; he shuddered. He was afraid that the Devil might have followed him there, and he looked back, expecting to see Satan in some terrible guise.

Related Characters: Abundio Martínez (The Burro Driver) (speaker), Damiana Cisneros (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:

He tried to raise his hand to wipe the image clear, but it clung to his legs like a magnet. He tried to lift the other hand, but it slipped slowly down his side until it touched the floor, a crutch supporting his boneless shoulder.
“This is death,” he thought.
[…]
Pedro Páramo replied:
“I’m coming along. I’m coming.”
He supported himself on Damiana Cisneros’s arm and tried to walk. After a few steps he fell; inside, he was begging for help, but no words were audible. He fell to the ground with a thud, and lay there, collapsed like a pile of rocks.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Damiana Cisneros
Page Number: 123-124
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Pedro Páramo LitChart as a printable PDF.
Pedro Páramo PDF

Pedro Páramo Quotes in Pedro Páramo

The Pedro Páramo quotes below are all either spoken by Pedro Páramo or refer to Pedro Páramo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Death, Hope, and Despair Theme Icon
).
Fragments 1-12, Pages 3-24 Quotes

I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived there. It was my mother who told me. And I had promised her that after she died I would go see him. I squeezed her hands as a sign I would do it. She was near death, and I would have promised her anything. “Don’t fail to go see him,” she had insisted. “Some call him one thing, some another. I’m sure he will want to know you.” At the time all I could do was tell her I would do what she asked, and from promising so often I kept repeating the promise even after I had pulled my hands free of her death grip.
Still earlier she had told me: “Don’t ask him for anything. Just what’s ours. What he should have given me but never did… Make him pay, son, for all those years he put us out of his mind.”

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s hot here,” I said.
“You might say. But this is nothing,” my companion replied. “Try to take it easy. You’ll feel it even more when we get to Comala. That town sits on the coals of the earth, at the very mouth of hell. They say that when people from there die and go to hell, they come back for a blanket.”
“Do you know Pedro Páramo?” I asked.
I felt I could ask because I had seen a glimmer of goodwill in his eyes.
“Who is he?” I pressed him.
“Living bile,” was his reply.
And he lowered his stick against the burros for no reason at all, because they had been far ahead of us, guided by the descending trail.

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Abundio Martínez (The Burro Driver) (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

Water dripping from the roof tiles was forming a hole in the sand of the patio. Plink! plink! and then another plink! as drops struck a bobbing, dancing laurel leaf caught in a crack between the adobe bricks. The storm had passed. Now an intermittent breeze shook the branches of the pomegranate tree, loosing showers of heavy rain, spattering the ground with gleaming drops that dulled as they sank into the earth. The hens, still huddled on their roost, suddenly flapped their wings and strutted out to the patio, heads bobbing, pecking worms unearthed by the rain. As the clouds retreated the sun flashed on the rocks, spread an iridescent sheen, sucked water from the soil, shone on sparkling leaves stirred by the breeze.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo, Susana San Juan, Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Related Symbols: Rain and Water
Page Number: 11-12
Explanation and Analysis:

Hundreds of meters above the clouds, far, far above everything, you are hiding, Susana. Hiding in God’s immensity, behind His Divine Providence where I cannot touch you or see you, and where my words cannot reach you.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Susana San Juan
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 13-23, Pages 25-41 Quotes

“Tomorrow morning we’ll begin to set our affairs in order. We’ll begin with the Preciado women. You say it’s them we owe the most?”
“Yes. And them we’ve paid the least. Your father always left the Preciados to the last. I understand that one of the girls, Matilde, went to live in the city. I don’t know whether it was Guadalajara or Colima. And that Lola, that is, doña Dolores, has been left in charge of everything. You know, of don Enmedio’s ranch. She’s the one we have to pay.”
“Then tomorrow I want you to go and ask for Lola’s hand.”
“What makes you think she’d have me? I’m an old man.”
“You’ll ask her for me. After all, she’s not without her charms. Tell her I’m very much in love with her. Ask her if she likes the idea.”

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Fulgor Sedano (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 24-36, Pages 41-61 Quotes

“Why did you come here?”
“I told you that at the very beginning. I came to find Pedro Páramo, who they say was my father. Hope brought me here.”
“Hope? You pay dear for that. My illusions made me live longer than I should have. And that was the price I paid to find my son, who in a manner of speaking was just one more illusion. Because I never had a son.”

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Dorotea (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 37-46, Pages 61-85 Quotes

“We live in a land in which everything grows, thanks to God’s providence; but everything that grows is bitter. That is our curse.”
“You’re right, Father. I’ve tried to grow grapes over in Comala. They don’t bear. Only guavas and oranges: bitter oranges and bitter guavas. I’ve forgotten the taste of sweet fruit. Do you remember the China guavas we had in the seminary? The peaches? The tangerines that shed their skin at a touch? I brought seeds here. A few, just a small pouch. Afterward, I felt it would have been better to leave them where they were, since I only brought them here to die.”
“And yet, Father, they say that the earth of Comala is good. What a shame the land is all in the hands of one man.”

Related Characters: Father Rentería (speaker), Contla’s Priest (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Related Symbols: Rain and Water
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

I waited thirty years for you to return, Susana. I wanted to have it all. Not just part of it, but everything there was to have, to the point that there would be nothing left for us to want, no desire but your wishes. How many times did I ask your father to come back here to live, telling him I needed him. I even tried deceit.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Juan Preciado, Susana San Juan, Bartolomé San Juan, Dorotea
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 47-59, Pages 86-108 Quotes

What can I do for you?” Pedro Páramo repeated. “Like you see, we’ve taken up arms.”
“And?”
“And nothing. That’s it. Isn’t that enough?”
“But why have you done it?”
“Well, because others have done the same. Didn’t you know? Hang on a little till we get our instructions, and then we’ll tell you why. For now we’re just here.”
“l know why,” another said. “And if you want, I’ll tell you why. We’ve rebelled against the government and against people like you because we’re tired of putting up with you. Everyone in the government is a crook, and you and your kind are nothing but a bunch of lowdown bandits and slick thieves. And as for the governor himself, I won’t say nothing, because what we have to say to him we’ll say with bullets.”
“How much do you need for your revolution?” Pedro Páramo asked. “Maybe I can help you.”

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker)
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 60-68, Pages 109-124 Quotes

People began arriving from other places, drawn by the endless pealing. They came from Contla, as if on a pilgrimage. And even farther. A circus showed up, who knows from where, with a whirligig and flying chairs. And musicians. First they came as if they were onlookers, but after a while they settled in and even played concerts. And so, little by little, the event turned into a fiesta. Comala was bustling with people, boisterous and noisy, just like the feast days when it was nearly impossible to move through the village.
The bells fell silent, but the fiesta continued. There was no way to convince people that this was an occasion for mourning. Nor was there any way to get them to leave. Just the opposite, more kept arriving.
[…]
Don Pedro spoke to no one. He never left his room. He swore to wreak vengeance on Comala:
“I will cross my arms and Comala will die of hunger.”
And that was what happened.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Susana San Juan
Page Number: 116-117
Explanation and Analysis:

“I need money to bury my wife,” he said. “Can you help me?”
Damiana Cisneros prayed: “Deliver us, O God, from the snares of the Devil.” And she thrust her hands toward Abundio, making the sign of the cross.
Abundio Martinez saw a frightened woman standing before him, making a cross; he shuddered. He was afraid that the Devil might have followed him there, and he looked back, expecting to see Satan in some terrible guise.

Related Characters: Abundio Martínez (The Burro Driver) (speaker), Damiana Cisneros (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:

He tried to raise his hand to wipe the image clear, but it clung to his legs like a magnet. He tried to lift the other hand, but it slipped slowly down his side until it touched the floor, a crutch supporting his boneless shoulder.
“This is death,” he thought.
[…]
Pedro Páramo replied:
“I’m coming along. I’m coming.”
He supported himself on Damiana Cisneros’s arm and tried to walk. After a few steps he fell; inside, he was begging for help, but no words were audible. He fell to the ground with a thud, and lay there, collapsed like a pile of rocks.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Damiana Cisneros
Page Number: 123-124
Explanation and Analysis: