The Roles of Cultural Belief Systems in Respects to Theme...

Pedro Paramo is a novel that cannot be fully understood without consideration of its rich cultural background. It is this Mexican background, which informs so much of the novel, providing the main conflict. The narrator of the tale remarks â€Å"some villages have the smell of misfortune† while describing the locale of Pedro Parà ¡mo, the small Mexican town of Comala where the story plays out on many levels (83). On the surface level, this story is merely about a tyranical man who ruins his hometown of Comala. But in reality he does much more than that, his presence detroys the town completely, driving everyone out and converting the town to a type of purgatory. This deeper harm that he causes, by damning the rest of his townsmen is the evil†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"‘I would walk into town to see what the uproar was about, and this is what I would see: just what we’re seing now. Nothing. No one. The streets as empty as they are now† (41). The st reets are always empty in Comala. It has been left completely to ruin and is now inhabited only by the spirits of those who once lived here. But even spirits must have a reason for staying and not going on to heaven? In following with the Catholic faith, the people of Comala must wait in purgatory, the â€Å"‘Refuge of Sinners’† until they have repaid the sins they have committed (16). The town is a hotbed of sinning, the very â€Å"image of damnation†, it is said â€Å"‘That town sits on the coals of the earth, at the very mouth of hell. They say that when people from there die and go to hell, they come back for a blanket’† (52, 6). The instances in which people are actually able to get out are few and far between, as seen by the quote â€Å"‘they’ve gone so far that it’s easier not to come back. He’s been trying and trying to leave, and I think this is the time’† (56). This is owing to the abje ct poverty of the town, leaving people unable to pay their tithes in order to make it to heaven. These poor soulds are not even kept in remembrance, so they may never reach heaven. As their descendants remark â€Å"‘we don’t even make the effort to pray for them anymore, to help them out of their purgatory’† (52). Pedro Pà ¡ramo is a novel with a distinctly Catholic conflict, namely, the journey from