Pedro Páramo Themes

Pedro Páramo may be full of ghosts, but it's equally full of the Father and the Son. The Catholic Church plays a super important role in the economic and social developments in the novel. Check...

We can think of Juan Preciado—the narrator of Pedro Páramo—as a kind of Indiana Jones figure, except that instead of trying to get his paws on artifacts, he's trying to get hold of memories....

A ranch town in the early 20th century might bring up images of gunfights, but that doesn't even come close to encompassing all the bloody mayhem in Pedro Páramo. When you add the Mexican Revolu...

Madness is pretty closely related to women in Pedro Páramo. There's a poor, mad beggar who believes she has a child even though she doesn't. Pedro's wife doesn't seem to notice that her first hus...

Man, do these characters in Pedro Páramo know how to suffer. They're always sighing, sobbing, thrashing about, and dying. They just can't catch a break. The important thing to notice is the way t...

Revenge drives most of the motivation in the novel, especially Pedro Páramo's jerky decision to let the town die off. Everyone feels wronged for something by someone, and everyone is out to get ve...

The setting of this novel is, quite literally, a ghost town, and spooky things happen in Comala after dark. The narrator hears horrible screams, regular conversations, and singing. It's enough to s...

It's all pink bows for girls and blue overalls for boys in Pedro Páramo. This novel gives us an insider's look into gender roles in rural Mexico at the turn of the 20th Century, and man oh man is...