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Fragments 24-36, Pages 41-61
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Pedro Páramo, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Death, Hope, and Despair
Power and Morality
History, Memory, and Narrative
Love and Patriarchy
Summary
Analysis
Fragment 37. Back in the past, a mockingbird sings in the distance during a rainstorm, which Fulgor Sedano takes as a sign that things will grow well in Comala that year. Fulgor sends 200 men out of Media Luna and towards the hills on horseback.
The rain again symbolizes the abundance and fertility of Comala in the past—this time, Fulgor makes it explicit. And the hundreds of horsemen reveal that Pedro’s power has grown significantly in Comala by this point in his life.
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Miguel Páramo passes by Fulgor and reports that he’s been “milking” some woman, then heads inside to Damiana Cisneros, who works in the kitchen. He asks Damiana if she knows Dorotea—Damiana says that Dorotea is outside, singing to her rebozo, which she has bundled up like the baby she has lost. Miguel goes outside to make a “proposition” to Dorotea, and when he returns, he asks Damiana to serve Dorotea the same food he gets.
Miguel has clearly inherited his father’s misogyny, as he talks about women as though they were animals. For the first time, Dorotea appears in a scene from the past. Miguel’s “proposition” is clearly that she will help find women for him in exchange for food. While she is clearly aiding and abetting and evil man, just like many of the other sinful characters in this novel, Dorotea is acting out of necessity.
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Meanwhile, Fulgor Sedano notes that the ranch is short on grain and starts to worry about Miguel’s irresponsible behavior. In fact, someone’s just accused him of murder, and he’s left his stallion at the ranch’s front gate, still saddled up. Despite Fulgor’s warnings, Pedro isn’t taking Miguel’s misbehavior seriously. Even when Fulgor told him about the woman who visited Media Luna in tears because Miguel killed her husband, Pedro said it wasn’t a problem because “those people don’t really count.” To get his mind off this drama, Fulgor looks out at the rain again.
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Fragment 38. Back in the present, Juan Preciado remembers his mother telling him about the smell of rain and beautiful sky in Comala. He tells Dorotea that it is strange that he came to Comala instead of his mother, who was supposed to die there. And he remarks that he also “never saw the sky.” Dorotea replies that she stopped noticing the sky years before, after she gave up hope of reaching heaven. Father Rentería told her that her sins would keep her out of heaven, and without hoping for heaven, she had no reason to live. Juan asks what happened to her soul, and she guesses that it’s waiting for prayers, remorseful and spiteful. In fact, her soul tried to convince her not to commit suicide, but she was eager to let it go.
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Fragment 39. Back in the past, a group of men, led by Fulgor, crowds outside the Media Luna ranch. Pedro Páramo remembers the morning Pedro’s mother tearfully informed him that Pedro’s father had been killed. So many other deaths followed. Right now, Fulgor’s group has Miguel’s body outside, but Fulgor reports that he died alone, because of his horse. As he watches Fulgor’s men lay out Miguel’s body, Pedro Páramo feels detached and worried—but not sorrowful. He sees Miguel’s death as part of his penance. He speaks to the group, then tells Fulgor to have Miguel’s horse put down and complains about how loudly the women are mourning.
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Fragment 40. Father Rentería never forgets the night of Miguel Páramo’s death, which he spent wandering around Comala, unable to sleep. He thinks back to how Pedro Páramo got so much power in Comala, sleeping with all the town’s women but recognizing none of his children as his own, except for Miguel. Father Rentería brought the infant Miguel to Pedro after his mother died in childbirth—but Pedro tried to convince Father Rentería to raise Miguel to be a priest. Father Rentería didn’t want to deal with the child’s evil blood, so Pedro made Damiana take care of him. He and Father Rentería drank to Miguel’s future.
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On the night of Miguel’s death, townspeople call out to Father Rentería as he wanders Comala, asking him if someone has died. (He wants to say that he has.) When he returns home in the morning, Ana reports that several women have stopped by the house, asking to confess. In fact, earlier that morning, he visited the neighboring town of Contla, where he confessed his sins to Contla’s priest. But Contla’s priest refused to pardon Father Rentería for letting Pedro Páramo corrupt the Church. He chastised Rentería for not working harder to save the townspeople in Comala and even suggested that he should lose his position in the ministry.
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The two priests lament that, while their towns’ land is extremely fertile, everything that grows there tastes bitter. But Father Rentería admits that most fruit has stopped growing in Comala. Contla’s priest suggests that this is because the wicked Pedro Páramo owns all the land. Father Rentería says that this “is God’s will,” but Contla’s priest disagrees.
Back in Comala, Father Rentería admits to Ana that he is evil. He goes to the Media Luna ranch and gives Pedro Páramo his condolences for Miguel’s death. Then, he spends the evening listening to the confessions of Comala’s women. Dorotea is first: she admits to getting drunk at Miguel’s wake and then reveals that she used to set the local girls up with Miguel—she has lost count of how many. Father Rentería asks her if she can forgive herself—she says no—and then tells her that her sins are unpardonable, and she cannot make it to heaven. As the rest of the women confess, one after the other, Father Rentería grows dizzy and sick. He goes outside and tells everyone waiting that they can return the next day for communion, then leaves the church.
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Fragment 41. An unidentified woman (who later turns out to be Susana) imagines she is in the bed where her mother died, and she grieves for her. But she is really in a coffin, about to be buried. She thinks about windy February, when fruit ripens under a blue sky and sparrows chirp all around. Her mother died in February—and instead of grief, she felt joy. She was just entering puberty. Justina helped arrange her mother’s wake, and they prayed even though nobody attended. Actually, someone from the church came, asking for money to pay for a mass. But they had none—they spent what they had on the coldhearted gravediggers. Justina lay down on the grave until Susana got her to move on.
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Fragment 42. Having overheard the previous fragment, Juan asks if Dorotea was talking in her sleep. Dorotea replies that it is doña Susana, who is buried nearby. She was the last wife to Pedro Páramo, and she still talks to herself endlessly, just like while she was living. Juan recalls that she was talking about her mother, but Dorotea points out that Susana never had a mother and then remembers that this mother was reclusive and sickly. Juan remembers the voice saying that nobody visited her mother’s wake, and Dorotea says this must be why.
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There are more murmuring sounds, but Dorotea says it’s a different voice—a man. The voice speaks of God saving them one night, when they were covered in blood after Pedro Páramo attacked him. Although he lost an arm and an eye in the attack, the man says it “made [him] more of a man.” Dorotea says that it could be anyone, since Pedro Páramo killed dozens of people. After someone mistook Pedro’s father don Lucas for someone else at a wedding, they shot and killed him, and Pedro took revenge by killing everyone who attended the ceremony.
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Susana starts moaning again and Dorotea asks Juan to listen closely. Dorotea says that Pedro loved Susana and treated her well. In fact, Pedro was devastated after Susana died—he gave up on life and even shut down the Media Luna. With the ranch’s fields abandoned, there was no more work in Comala, so the town’s men started leaving, and their families soon followed. Dorotea stayed, waiting to inherit the land Pedro Páramo promised her. But then the Cristero War broke out, and the few remaining men went to fight, leaving Dorotea alone to starve.
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Fragment 43. Back in the past, Fulgor Sedano tells Pedro Páramo that Bartolomé San Juan has returned to Comala. Fulgor doesn’t know why Bartolomé is back, but he does know that the man moved straight into Pedro’s old house. Pedro chastises Fulgor for not fixing the situation yet, and Fulgor reports that Bartolomé has brought a woman—probably his wife, or maybe his daughter.
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Fragment 44. Pedro reminisces about Susana, who left Comala in her childhood and did not return for 30 years. He declares that everything he did in Comala was for her, so that she could have everything she could possibly imagine. Pedro even offered a job to her father, don Bartolomé San Juan. But the messenger kept failing to find Bartolomé and deliver him the job offer. Eventually, he did find them, and Bartolomé and Susana finally returned to Comala when violent rebellions broke out in the surrounding area. Pedro was ecstatic and cried tears of joy.
Fragment 45. Bartolomé San Juan tells Susana, his daughter, that Comala smells unlucky. Everything was alive in La Andromeda, the mine where they were living in the hills, but in Comala things just stagnate and die. Even though he gave them a house, Pedro Páramo is not going to save them. He wants something in exchange: not La Andromeda, the mine, but rather Susana, whom he has loved since their childhoods. Bartolomé considers this scandalous.
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Susana insists on going with Pedro. Bartolomé points out that Pedro has already had many other women, and he realizes that he must return to La Andromeda to die. Susana might be a widow, he continues, but she might as well still be living with her husband. Besides, Pedro Páramo is pure evil. Bartolomé insists that Susana is his. But Susana says no—Bartolomé is not her father. She knows it sounds crazy, but she really means it.
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Fragment 46. Pedro Páramo declares that Susana is the most beautiful woman in the world and then asks Fulgor to make Bartolomé disappear when he returns to the Andromeda mine. This will leave Susana with no option but to marry Pedro. In the meantime, Fulgor will win Bartolomé’s trust by helping him get safe passage to and from the Andromeda mine.
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