Description
Topics: Hopes and dreams as a foundation for success; desperation that comes if hopes and dreams are not brought into life.
Main plot: Among the primary characters of the work is Juan Preciado. He searches for his father and unintentionally turns to be in Komala’s afterlife, as well as get acquainted with ones who have identical hopes and suffering. The second plotline is dedicated to the life and death of the mentioned father – Pedro Paramo – his omnipotence and powerlessness, as well as love, detestation, and desolation.
Plots’ description: There are two main storylines in the novel that congregate and break up in reality. Then, in the afterlife, they split into detached and unconnected events, dialogues, and monologues. They provide a complicated kaleidoscope of seemingly disparate texts that do not have an apparent beginning or end. The characters in the novel do not at all descend into the underworld after death. They live in Comala – the Kingdom of the Dead (Rulfo 60); meanwhile, common issues of everyday routine are preserved within it.
The work’s structure: The order of events is split in this novel, and sometimes it is not easy to discern. At first, all these events are depicted, and then elaborated to a greater extent.
Valuation
General valuation: The novel is an artistic revelation in both Hispanic-language prose and world literature. In this work, the author utilized the traits of menippea – a literary genre that presents a descent into the afterlife (Durix 80). It came from the profounds of antiquity, which the author transferred into an entirely Mexican context. The work itself is founded on the mental state of Mexican peasants and on the mystery carnival grotesque position towards death.
Literary valuation: The rare artistic gift of the author and his exceptionally Mexican perception allow him to provide an absolutely new version of menippea with his own extent of symbolism. His novel is characterized by a specificity example for this genre, with clever use of artistic remedies from the resources of realistic and surrealist literature. There are specific emotional richness and an emphasized interosculation of life and death.
Commercial valuation: The novel can become a world treasure because it is written intelligibly and can open up a whole new world of Latin American literature and become its full-scale pioneer for the world community because it is aimed at the broadest audience – commercial success is almost guaranteed.
Relationship with other books: In his works, Rulfo provides psychological and life occasions that define people’s fates, still not deviating from the basic features of the traditional-realistic approach. Nevertheless, it is the first case in the national literary art, when the author advances Mexican peasants’ speeches to a high artistic degree (D’Lugo 471). There are nor Mexican nor Latin American writers before this author who was able to reveal – with such an approach – the inner world of a person and its relation to the definiteness of destiny. Rulfo’s many-voiced and multidimensional stories are like sketches for Pedro Paramo.
Public objective: The crucial themes of Rulfo’s novel are related to the issues of poverty and the lack of rights of the peasants, the over-power of the local kings, religious zealotry, and age-old resignation, which are relevant. But the powerful social sound of the work does not drown out, but, on the contrary, more apparently depicts their moral and philosophical meaning.
Positive aspects to enhance: The apparent strength of the novel is the significant and rich language and metaphorical context of the events.
Possible problems to consider: The event’s order could have been more sequential and coherent.
Suggestions
Possible modification of the title: Pedro Páramo: Life and Afterlife.
Design Suggestions: The book’s cover might be minimalistic with golden letters of the title on the black background, which would symbolize the precious thread of life intersected with the dark and unknown afterlife.
Promotional Ideas: The novel may be promoted as a great discovery and the representative of a new literary movement; catalogs in both English and Spanish should present it from the very first pages; a promotional campaign might take place not only in Hispanic-language countries but worldwide.
Works Cited
D’Lugo, Carol Clark. “Pedro Páramo: The Reader’s Journey through the Text.” Hispania, vol. 70, no. 3, 1987, pp. 468-474.
Durix, Jean-Pierre. “From Fantasy to Magic Realism.” Mimesis, Genres and Post-Colonial Discourse, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, pp. 79–148.
Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Paramo. PDF File, 1955.