Pedro Paramo

Pedro Paramo is the eponymous antagonist of the novel. Pedro is a violent, ruthless man. He dominates the town of Comala, just as he comes to dominate the narrative. Though Juan grows up with little knowledge of his father, his trip to Comala reveals that the identity and mystery of Pedro Paramo cannot be untangled from the history of Comala. To all intents and purposes, Pedro becomes Comala, and Comala functions as an extension of Pedro’s emotional state.

After the murder of Pedro’s father and the departure of Pedro’s childhood sweetheart, Susana, Pedro swears that he will take over the town. He murders anyone associated with his father’s murderers, establishing his propensity for violence, then seizes control of the town through intimidation and cunning. According to Pedro, the purpose of seizing control of the town is to provide everything for Susana, should she ever return. He wrestles control over an entire community because he is beholden to the idea of a woman who left many years before and who he has not seen since.

In her absence, Pedro is a relentless womanizer. He fathers many children around Comala and refuses to acknowledge them as his offspring. In a real sense, the community of Comala becomes the product of Pedro’s actions: Not only are the people traumatized by his violent behavior and disenfranchised by his schemes, but many of them are disowned blood relations of Pedro who are bitter about the way they have been treated. He works himself into the bloodlines of the town, creating a violent, festering atmosphere that turns the beautiful rural town of Dolores’s nostalgic memories into a vacant, hellish mystery, populated only by ghosts.

Pedro’s violence is informed by a romantic delusion. He convinces himself that he is acting for emotional reasons, either to avenge his father’s murder or to impress the love of his life. However, he demonstrates an inability to relate to people on an emotional level, which suggests his motivations are either delusional or self-serving. When Susana does return to Comala, Pedro’s first instinct is to plot her father’s murder so that she will be dependent on him. He cannot register the hypocrisy of killing Susana’s father in an act of love while avenging his father’s murder as an act of rage. Similarly, he seems unable to understand that Susana might have loved another man, and is bewildered by her depression and grief.

When she passes away, Pedro orchestrates a large demonstration of grief. The “deafening lament” (129) of the funeral bells is heard around Comala for weeks. Eventually, people misinterpret Pedro’s public display of grief. They begin to celebrate as though a festival were taking place. Their happiness offends him. He swears revenge against the town itself, not just its people. He allows everything in Comala to deteriorate out of sheer spite. The bitterness of the soil is overwhelmed by the bitterness of Pedro.

After everyone has left, the buildings and the streets are empty. The town is populated by the traumatic memory of Pedro. Eventually, he is killed by one of his unclaimed sons in a brief, confusing knife fight. Pedro sits down to die, gradually growing numb. He believes that “some part of him [dies] every day” (137), so this slow death is merely an extension of his suffering. Pedro has such a domineering presence in the novel that he takes over everything. From Comala to the narrative itself, Pedro infects everything with his violence and trauma.

Susana San Juan plays an important role in Pedro Paramo. She is the supposed love of Pedro’s life, whose absence motivates him to take over all of Comala and whose death prompts him to run the town into the ground.

Susana first meets Pedro when she is a young girl. Pedro is deeply in love with her, though she seems unaware of his devotion. When she leaves the town with her father, she quickly forgets Pedro. Meanwhile, Pedro is creating a different version of Susana. Her departure is a moment of inception, the point at which Pedro freezes in his mind a specific impression of Susana as a beautiful, innocent young woman who loves him. He treasures this idea of Susana, even as the real Susana departs further and further from Pedro’s idealized version. While Pedro is seizing control of Comala to ensure that his idealized Susana will want for nothing, the real Susana is falling in love with Florencio. When Florencio dies, Susana is heartbroken. Grief overwhelms her and obliterates the vestigial traces of the woman Pedro once loved. Susana is completely changed in her time away from Comala but Pedro refuses to accept that she may have led a life in his absence.

Susana’s return to Comala is a demonstration of Pedro’s tendency to violence. With Susana back within his grasp, he immediately acts to ensure that she will never leave him again. He has her father murdered, compounding the grief she feels at the loss of Florencio. Pedro marries the traumatized Susana, believing her to be the same woman whom he has idealized for so long. Though they marry, though he has taken over the entire town to provide her with everything, she refuses to leave her room. She has nightmares every night and is forced to relive her traumas when she is awake. Susana is entirely consumed with grief. Pedro feels bewilderment, rather than sympathy. He cannot conceive of the pain she has suffered because doing so would force him to reckon with his role in her suffering. As Susana descends further into her grief, her relationship with Pedro becomes a mirror for his refusal to acknowledge his own sins.

When Susana dies, Pedro indulges his lack of empathy once more. He publicly indulges his grief, inflicting his own pain and suffering on the entire town in Susana’s name. Susana’s fate is relegated to a false justification for other people’s trauma. She never asked Pedro for his love, nor for his vengeance. She is the victim of a man’s obsession through no fault of her own. She spends her time after death in her coffin instead of wandering freely as a ghost, speaking to herself and mirroring the isolation that defined her as Pedro’s wife.