History Literature / PedroParamo

In reality, the book documents the rise and fall of both Pedro and the Town, shifting constantly from person to person and back and forth in time. Comala is the GhostTown (in more ways than one) trope taken to its extreme: most of its habitants are ghosts and/or memories unaware of their deaths, [[FridgeHorror and it is notoriously difficult both for Preciado and for the reader to tell between the living and dead]]. Comala, though dangerous in its own quiet way [[spoiler: as Preciado's spontaneous death midway through can probably attest]], is not so much creepy as it is as a melancholic place lingering with the defeat of death and forgetting. This being MagicalRealism it still manages to be eccentric and even somewhat funny.

* FisherKing: Pedro is so bitter about the townsfolk's failure to mourn Susana that he refuses to either use the land productively or give management to someone else, which totaly destroys the local economy.

* ByronicHero: the titular man.

* FilmOfTheBook: the book has several adaptations, an old one from old mexican cinema and a more recent one.

* UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution: indirectly affects the plot.

** When Susana dies, Pedro Páramo orders the church’s bells rang endlessly for his grief. Everyone is curious about this, and instead of being a time of grief, [[GoneHorriblyWrong it attracts so much people of other towns that they make a great party]]. Pedro cannot stop them, so he decides make Comala a GhostTown.

* MeaningfulName: at first it seems so but the truth is much more complicated. Juan Rulfo was known for his habit of wandering cemeteries and using the names in the tombs for his stories. All named characters got their names that way, but he still chose them accordingly: "Páramo" means "wasteland", "Preciado" means "prized, beloved" and much more.

* ThemeNaming: a large amount of characters have biblical names, which is completely accurate from a mexican village.

* DisproportionateRetribution: Perdo's father, Lucas, is killed in a wedding by an unknown man. So he kills every single person that attended the wedding.

--> "Illusion? That is expensive. To me living costed much more than it was due" --as said by a dead woman.

* MexicanRevolution: indirectly affects the plot.

In reality, the book documents the rise and fall of both Pedro and the Town, shifting constantly from person to person and back and forth in time. Comala is the GhostTown (in more ways than one) trope taken to its extreme: most of its habitants are ghosts and/or memories unaware of their deaths, [[FridgeHorror and it is notoriously difficult both for Preciado and for the reader to tell between the living and dead]]. Comala , though dangerous in its own quiet way [[spoiler: as Preciado's spontaneous death midway through can probably attest]], is not so much creepy as it is as a melancholic place lingering with the defeat of death and forgetting. This being MagicalRealism it still manages to be eccentric and even somewhat funny.