I found the story quite confusing to read with all the time jumps and character switches. It really put the “ghost” in ghost town (that was awful I know). Having one of the narrators, Juan Preciado, die in the middle was also quite unexpected, but at the same time, maybe I should’ve seen it coming. The entire beginning of the story is about him being haunted by the inhabitants of this abandoned town.
One of the quotes that stuck out the most to me was: “It’s been so many years since I’ve raised my head that I have forgotten about heaven. Even if I had, what would it have mattered? Heaven is so high up, and my eyes so weak, that I was happy just to be able to see the earth.” (I’m reading off of a PDF so I don’t know the exact page number) said by Dorotea to Juan Preciado. Even though I can’t exactly relate to Dorotea’s longing for a child, the feeling of never being able to achieve what you desire is something I think every person has experienced. It’s such a depressing quote, yet it fully describes the feeling of wanting something with your entire being and knowing that you can never get it, so you force yourself to be content with what you have.
Dorotea also felt like she was always the butt of the joke. In one instance, Father Renteria called her a clown. She was drunk and explained that she was at Miguel’s funeral: “I was just at Miguel’s funeral, and they kept on giving me something to drink until I turned into a clown.” Father Renteria replies with: “You’ve never been anything else, Dorotea.” Which is… a little out of pocket ??? But then she tells the Father that she had been the one who had gotten the girls for Miguel so maybe it was justified.
A concerning theme that’s been reoccurring in a few of the works I’ve read for this class, like Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda and The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution by Mariano Azuela, have always had women as the accessory. They’re always getting dragged around by the men, objectified, and not given a voice. They must bend to the will of the men and aren’t treated as humans of equal standing. I know that women weren’t treated well, but it’s one thing to know that and another to read about it. And not read about it in a way where the book directly focuses on the treatment of women, but instead just casual mistreatment that’s seen as totally normal. From Camila being forced away from her home to Susana San Juan being held by Pedro Paramo to be his wife, the women are treated as accessories to the men and it’s honestly quite depressing.
Also the pettiness of Pedro Paramo is unmatched. ” ‘I will cross my arms, and Comala will die of hunger.’ And that’s what he did.” I respect it.
Question:
Why do you think Juan Rulfo jumped between times and perspectives while telling the story?
I think that Rulfo in this narrative seeks to question time, but in a different way from what we saw in Borges. In this novel, Comala remains in a paradoxical eternity, made of fragments of very earthly life. Some of these fragments tell us about the terrible lives of various women. The gender issue is very present in Rulfo, and it is worth talking about it. Thanks for bringing it up for discussion.
Hey! Im really glad to hear your thoughts on the way these books approach gender. Its always been an unsettling feeling, to read about these mistreatments so casually, from the sister that frankly was forced into an incestuous relationship and needs to worry about being abandoned, to the multiple other instances of Pedro or Miguel raping other women. Its even worse that this pattern of behaviour permeates frankly every book that I have read so far, with Mama Blanca probably being the outlier, since the main character is a literal child. In response to your question, I think jumping between time in this novel adds effect to blurring the distinction between life and and death for all the characters. Like the appear as ghosts to Juan, but also recount the stories of their lives in separate paragraphs. Having time take different form in this book almost breaks away our understanding of death as an “ending” and instead seems like a continuation of life.