MRB Pedro Paramo 3 Entitities

While reading the novel, Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo I discovered three important entities that were affected by the Magical Realist devices. These entities were time, life & death, and religion.

First Entity: Time
Once Juan begins his journey to Comala the story begins to lose any sense of time that it once had. Rulfo is constantly shifting between different story plots that occur in different time periods without any acknowledgement of doing it. I believe he is doing this to give an essence of what magic realism literature is all about. The past and present are fused into one sporadic era where time means non-existent. The past and present events that are seamlessly occurring at the same time allows for reality to be bent in a way that tests the readers fortitude towards magical realism composition. The distortion of time is featured throughout the entire book, but does get easier to pick up on as you continue reading.
Second Entity: Life and Death
Throughout the novel there is an incorporation of living and non-living entities that is impossible to miss. It becomes evident very early on when Dyada, who was a close friend of Juan’s mother but has not seen her in years tells him that she was expecting him. When Juan asks how she knew he was coming she replies, “She told me you were coming. Today in fact…” but his mother had died days before this meeting. The seamless combination of normal and abnormal events and entities is a major characteristic of magical realism. During his stay in Comala, Juan is constantly encountering souls that disappear and reappear right before his eyes and yet he is not disturbed by this, but more intrigued. He even will acknowledge this fact while in conversation with these beings so it is no secret or disturbance. All of these souls are stuck in purgatory and are waiting to eventually be released and sent to heaven, hopefully. Unfortunately Juan dies while in Comala and also ends up stuck in purgatory with the rest of the townspeople. But although Juan is dead, he continues to communicate with these souls and he seems very accepting of the fact that he is dead. This reflects on the Mexican culture because unlike in America, when someone dies in Mexico there life is celebrated by their family rather than mourned over. There is even a holiday called El Dia de Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) in which past family members lives are commemorated.

Third Entity: Religion
I believe that religion is a large piece of this magical realism novel and is used as a device to represent the the history of the Mexican culture. The Mexican culture values religion more than the American one and is historically more religiously accepting. This is displayed in the novel with Father Renteria who is constantly in confessional attempting to absolve many of the townspeople of their sins. He is well known and respected around Comala plays a large role in the novel. This is especially important to a magical realism novel because the Latin American culture has always been more accepting of the derailing of the natural boundaries. Dating back to their most native tribes who believed in Pantheism, which is the belief that god exists in all natural things such as a tree or a rock. Rulfo wanted to make sure religion played a role in this book in order to acknowledge this historical culture.