ENGL 362 wq 2018 Professor Kaup
Storytelling Inconsistencies in Pedro Paramo The force of Pedro Paramo ’s narrative lies in Juan Rulfo’s unique storytelling technique.
This novel, unlike others, is not bound by the typical conventions of point of view narration, chronology, or even life. The inconsistencies in the novel’s storytelling can be overwhelming upon first read, yet they serve a larger purpose for the story. A few of the intentional narrative irregularities include: Juan’s first-person narration entwined with third-person narratives of the town’s deceased inhabitants, Pedro Paramo and Susana San Juan’s first-person narration privileges in the second half of the novel, and the lack of consistency in Pedro and Susana’s first- person vignettes. These storytelling choices can be attributed to the answer of whom the stories are intended. Pedro Paramo ’s inconsistent storytelling methods leave the reader without solid footing when navigating the purgatory of Comala and require a step back to look at Rulfo’s grand purpose of narrative intent.
The novel opens with a conventional sense of narrative voice. Juan Preciado speaks in first-person with small passages that break up his journey to Comala. Each new segment is denoted by a bold, capitalized letter, but the first few pages appear to be simply smaller parts of
Juan’s experience finding and settling into town. Page 11 signifies the beginning of the multiplied narration. The new vignette, beginning with “Water dripping from the roof tiles was forming a hole in the sand of the patio” (11) reveals that there is more than one narrator, though there is no indication as to his or her identity. The the dripping rainwater that appears out of place in present-day Comala’s dry landscape and indicates that the vignette belongs to a previous era. After the interruption, Juan’s narration in the modern town continues again without any 2 acknowledgement to the break. After this point, the dead’s stories continue to weave themselves in between Juan’s first-person vignettes in roughly ten-page segments. The frequency of the dead’s vignettes in comparison to Juan’s shifts radically when the main character dies in the middle of the book (58). Following Juan’s death, the stories of the dead increase in more frequency until, eventually, the vignettes move away from Juan completely towards the history of Comala and the two determinants of its fate: Pedro Paramo and Susana San Juan.
Juan Preciado, Pedro Paramo, and Susana San Juan are the only three characters in the novel that are privileged with first-person narratives. That is, narratives that include first-person pronouns outside of quotation marks. Juan’s first-person narration is sparse for a novel that begins with him as the narrator and archetypal hero. His first-person vignettes appear solely in the first half of the story as he becomes an ear for the restless souls and means for their pain to be heard. His narrative turning point occurs on page 58 when he dies suddenly and passes into the realm of the dead. There are several times in the second half of the novel when Juan is focalized in a vignette, however, his first-person pronouns appear only in quotation marks without any separate input from Juan himself. A second transition for Juan as a narrator occurs on page 78 in the vignette beginning with “’Was that you talking, Dorotea?’… ‘I heard someone talking. A woman’s voice. I thought it was you.’” After this point, his character only appears as a means to relay Susana’s stories to Dorotea. Juan becomes a simple conduit, and the overall end of the novel focuses more on the relationship between Pedro and Susana.
As the main character in the first half of the novel, it seems obvious that Juan would be granted a first-person point of view, but Rulfo also grants this powerful perspective to two other characters. Both Pedro Paramo and the object of his love, Susana San Juan, become influential figures in the second half of the novel, so they become centralized through first-person narration. 3
Since they are only given a few first-person vignettes between the two of them, the majority of their individual stories are told, like the other townspeople’s, through third-person narration.
Juan was never described in the first half of the book through a third-person narration, so it is odd that there is not a uniform transition for the main characters in the second half of the novel to only utilize first-person narration. Even within vignettes, narrative inconsistencies arise. Pedro
Paramo is permitted a few vignettes with complete first-person narration as seen on pages 20 and
82. However, within some of his other vignettes, there is a mixture of first and third-person narration. For example, the vignette on page 15 begins with “During the night it began to rain again… when he awoke, he heard only a quiet drizzle. The windowpanes were misted over and raindrops were threading down like tears… I watched the trickles glinting in the lightning flashes, and every breath I breathed, I sighed” (15). The pronoun ‘I’ is not used within quotation marks signifying that Pedro Paramo’s direct thoughts are coming through in the vignette, but there remains a powerful third-person narrator that directs the overall fragment. Susana San Juan is allowed one complete first-person vignette spanning from page 75 to 78. Though she is given less first-person narration time, her point of view is not interrupted unlike Pedro’s. The inconsistency of narration, even within certain narratives, creates uncertainty as to the use of these first-person points of view and their receiver when readers would be able to better understand a narrative told completely in first-person or third-person. There would be no reason for the change in narration unless there are two different intended audiences.
It would make sense for Juan, the only living person in town, to be the intended recipient of these small vignettes; however, he does not always add his commentary or recognition to the third-person stories. Juan acknowledges hearing certain voices from the restless souls, for example, the story of the hanged man in Dona Eduviges’ guest room. “It was during one of those 4
[fitful] intervals that I heard the cry… I heard it for a long, long while. ‘You owe me something even if it’s nothing more than a hanged man’s right to a last word’” (32). However, many stories stand on their own without any commentary from Juan. The plot of Pedro’s marriage to Dolores, for example, is not acknowledged at any point by Juan Preciado, although it seems like the storyline that would be of most interest to the main character. This irregularity continues even after Juan dies. After his death, Juan only acknowledges hearing the neighboring grave of Susana
San Juan and her stories of her life outside of Pedro Paramo (78, 83, 95, 99). This is because the third-person stories are not intended for Juan and his goal of learning about his father. Instead, they are intended for the reader as a means of constructing Comala’s history and the reason for the abundance of restless souls. After Juan’s death his personal interactions with the dead diminish because he can no longer help the animas en pena. He has become one of them and can no longer give them the prayers and peace that they seek, so the third-person narratives are meant only for the readers in hopes that they can maybe free them from Comala’s purgatory.
The reasoning behind the inconsistencies in point of view and chronology become more apparent as the novel transforms from a story of Juan’s personal quest into a story about the greater history of Comala. The ambiguous third-person narration provides a wholistic view of the town and its cursed history that is privileged only to the reader. Once Juan can no longer help the restless spirits, the stories of the dead increase so that the readers may be the ones to learn about their misfortunes and pass on their prayers to the animas en pena that roam Comala. Pedro
Paramo has an intricately unique method of storytelling that no doubt landed Juan Rulfo in the magical-realism hall of fame.
Works Cited Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Paramo . New York: Grove Press, 1955.