Though Pedro Páramo is notable for marking a break from the social realism that

defined much of Mexican literature in the 20th century, it is still grounded in Mexican
history and the culture of its time. The novel's dream-like progression and
expressionistic atmosphere are best understood in terms of two significant events that
changed Mexican society – the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the Cristero War of
1926-1929.
Both the causes and goals of the Mexican Revolution remain a subject of debate, but
what is certain is that the country was overcome with a fervor for change. Before the
Revolution, Mexico operated under a quasi-feudal structure, in which large landowners
controlled most of the property that was farmed by the country's peasants, who mostly
inhabited small villages like Comala. One class that was particularly overlooked in this
system was the country's bourgeoisie (middle class), and it was this class that initiated
protests against the country's dictator, Porifio Diaz, in the early 20th century. Though
Diaz had taken power in the 1850s via a military coup, he oversaw a stabilization of the
Mexican state and an expansion of its economy. The latter effect both empowered the
bourgeoisie (through allowing for a greater educated class and also encouraging new
economic opportunities) and enraged them since most of the wealth and land stayed in
the hands of the oligarchy - the select few that Diaz favored.
As the election of 1910 approached, a northern landowner, Franciso Madero,
idealistically appealed to the bourgeoisie to support his candidacy in hopes that he could
ensure a more even distribution of opportunity and a lessening of the military state.
Diaz's victory in the election, engineered through unabashedly corrupt means, would
historically have led the liberal faction to disintegrate, but Madero surprised the
government by calling upon the Mexican people to lead an armed revolt on November
20, 1910.
It was then that the Revolution truly began. Now that the common mass - mostly
illiterate farmers tired of being overworked without receiving their share of the new
wealth - was mobilized, Diaz's government found its control less assured than it had
believed. The revolutionaries were less inspired by any liberal or progressive philosophy
than they were by a nostalgic hope of reclaiming the local control of their own land and
villages, a control that was lost under Diaz. Their passion and knowledge of their own
countryside led to a guerrilla war that caused Diaz's resignation and Madero's
inauguration by May 1911.
However, the energy of the masses was not easily quelled, and when Madero's liberal
reforms were quashed by the landowning class, Madero was overthrown and
assassinated in 1913. Bloody revolution reigned for over a decade, as rulers were
overthrown and local rulers – Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa foremost among them -
ran Mexico in pieces. Ultimately, the peasants lost their zeal for a battle that produced
no national results, and began to return to their villages. The peace was finally
engineered by a party known as the Constiutionalists, shrewd politicians who
distributed enough land to villages to buy their support while still maintaining upper
class control on most of the country's wealth. The peasants who had empowered the
revolutions were easily subdued, and as wealth became consolidated in cities under the
new government, this common population found it progressively necessary to abandon
their villages in favor of greater opportunity in those cities. Thus began a steady
migration from rural Mexico, a migration that helps to explain the historical factors that
are implicit in Rulfo's depiction of Comala as a near ghost town.
The common fervor had apparently died down by the mid-1920s, but the Cristero
Rebellion sprang up in 1926, another event alluded to in Pedro Páramo. The rebellion,
which was centered in western Mexico, was encouraged by the clergy but fought by the
peasants, who called themselves Cristeros for the religious signification of the word. The
traditional account is that the wealthy landowning classes, whose prominence was
challenged by the liberal constitutional reforms, used the clergy to inspire an attempted
overthrow. Other arguments suggest that the rebellion was less about the economy than
the government – as the latter grew more central and socialized, it saw a need to battle
the Church, which held most authority in rural areas, for control. By this argument, the
Church merely directed a common discontent into a series of armed skirmishes that
were finally quelled by a 1929 agreement between the government and the Church,
negotiated without any input from the peasants who fought. Though a much shorter-
lived conflict, this rebellion deepened the resentments on both sides of the social divide,
while also making rural society more irrelevant and thereby encouraging more
migration to the cities.
This brief history of 20th century strife in Mexico is key in understanding the elegiac
tone of Pedro Páramo. Not only does it provide some real-world context for the
depraved state of Comala, but it also elucidates the context of the novel's main themes:
nostalgia, longing, death, and loneliness. Rulfo's work is entirely modern and universal,
but it is also very much a work inspired by and dedicated to his people and country.

Death
Death pervades the entire novel, both in a literal and figurative sense. Literally, it is
death that both incites the main action and complicates the protagonist's quest; his
mother dies and asks him to find his father, and he soon discovers his father is dead as
well. Juan is led into Comala by Abundio's ghost. The reader learns later that Abundio is
the person who murdered Pedro. Comala is a ghost town, having been deserted by the
exodus of rural villagers to the cities following the revolution. In Comala, Juan meets
several ghosts and hears the persistent murmurs of others - including his mother.
Halfway through the novel, Juan dies but he still continues to narrate from his grave.
Death is not final in Comala; the dead wander their purgatory hoping for absolution.
The questions of memory and nostalgia also echo this sense of death in that they also
concern the passing on of life.
Land Ownership
Despite its ethereal nature, Pedro Páramo is a novel very much grounded in the realities
of early 20th century rural Mexico. As such, one of the primary concerns is the
oppression of the poor wielded by those in the powerful land-owning class. Pedro rules
the Media Luna with an iron fist, to large degree because he is able to monopolize the
ownership of land. He is ruthless in his pursuit, murdering those that dispute his
control. What ultimately leads to the desertion of Comala is his inability to offer any
work opportunity after Susana's death, which highlights the lack of options available to
poor folk who own no land of their own. Comala's ultimate tragedy lies in the ruin of its
wonderful past by a ruthless, archaic system that punished all but the most wealthy.

Religion
The rural Mexico of the novel is haunted by a Christianity that makes denizens beholden
to hypocritical priests. Their Catholicism requires forgiveness for any and all sin, but
under a priest class that demands payment in exchange for absolution, the poor are left
oppressed by their own belief systems. It is one of several factors that create the stilted
existence of Comala. Father Rentería serves as the personification of these forces
throughout the novel. He is seen as a patsy of the Páramo family, as he absolves Miguel
despite the boy's actions during his life - the murder of Father Rentería's brother and
rape of his niece. Rentería is himself denied consecration by the priest in Contla for his
misdeeds. It is suggested that he is the reason that Comala is so heavily populated with
ghosts; he failed to absolve the poor before their deaths. Comala can be understood as a
type of purgatory, where souls must relive their lives until granted atonement, which
opens up several questions of guilt, sin, and redemption that unfold throughout the
work.

Oppression of Women
The novel is full of implicit criticism of a world that oppresses women. Pedro Páramo
and his son Miguel see women as objects (the former for their tactical value, the latter
for their sexual value). Women have little agency in their own lives or the world around
them. Their lack of power is evident in a full spectrum of events - from Dolorita's failure
to postpone her wedding to Donis's sister's abuse at the hands of her brother to Miguel
and Pedro's rapes of villagers. Only Susana, trapped in fantasy and grief, is able to
transcend the power structure, but at the price of her sanity. This rampant oppression
leads to much heartbreak, pain, and ultimately depression. Juan is an interesting
character to introduce into this world because he enters the story as a person very much
influenced by a woman (his mother). He is someone who does not view women the same
way as his father and the men of his time did. Through him, the predominately female
voices of the spirits are honored.
Memory
The basic narrative thrust of the novel is that of a narrator relating the memories of
other people. The fractured structure of the novel unfolds in a way akin to memory. The
complicated perspectives of the novel can well be explained as a multitude of voices
repeating the stories of their lives. However, even if one does not accept this
interpretation, it is undeniable that the primary force of the work is making peace with a
lost history. The souls who inhabit Comala are cursed to relive their lives over and over,
a rather depressing activity which contrasts with Juan's hope of reliving something
wonderful when he arrives in the village.

Hope
Though Pedro Páramo is fundamentally steeped in sadness, there remains some
semblance of hope for many of the characters. One interpretation of Comala is a
purgatory and, therefore, even the worst sinner can find restitution if he or she suffers
and atones long enough. Some characters believe they will be able to leave Comala at
some point; there may be a happy ending after all for these spirits. However, there is
plenty of reason to doubt this hope, as characters like Dorotea challenge the notion that
absolution is possible. Still, Dorotea delights in the shedding of her soul and, with it, her
guilt. She finds a way to find peace. It is telling that the basic narrative begins with
Juan's hope of reuniting with his father, and yet ends without any sense that he will ever
leave Comala. In death, as in life, Comala's residents are trapped.

Lifelessness/Stasis
The difference between death and lifelessness is that the latter can occur during a
person's lifetime. If anything is to be seen as a sin by Rulfo, it is the way people fall into
a stasis from which they either cannot or refuse to break. In some ways, this stasis is
forced by social condition - the poor have little power to change their lives, and women
often have no option but to submit to patriarchy. At other times, the lifelessness results
from a lack of hope, an acceptance of the world's brutality. We are meant to somewhat
admire Susana because, even though she is forced under Pedro's care in the last days of
her life, she remains active in her mind, remembering things that make her happier.
That she is in pain at the same time only underscores the cost of breaking out of static
systems of thought and life. In the narrator's journey, he is ultimately swallowed by the
lifelessness of Comala until he is, like many in the town, literally dead and unable to
move further and find peace.