Pedro Paramo Chp.1 Close Read

This passage precedes all other text in the novel, it begins the book and begins Juan's journey. The passage explains why Juan Preciado travels to Comala in the first place. Juan narrates this whole passage and it is also from his point of view, his thoughts and his experiences. Juan says that he had promised his mother that he would go to Comala. He promised her that he would find his father and make him pay, "for all those years he put us out of his mind," as it was his mother's dying wish. Juan's mother wanted him to ask him for what belonged to them; Juan had never meant to keep his promise to his mother but as he began, "to build a world around a hope centered on the man called Pedro Paramo," he convinced himself to go. I find it interesting that at the end of that line Juan says, "the man who had been my mother's husband," because it shows right from the start the tension between Juan and his father, and that Juan is trying to distance himself from Pedro. Juan Rulfo ends this passage with "that was why I had come to Comala," which is very similar to how he started it, "I came to Comala because," these two quotes add to Juan as the narrator and it shows that it's him describing the background of the book to the readers from his own point of view. It adds an element of meta-fiction; it's like Juan Preciado/Rulfo is talking to the readers specifically.