William Faulkners influence on Juan Rulfos Pedro Pramo

1
William Faulkners influence on Juan Rulfos
Pedro Páramo

• -Katrin Gibb

2
Juan Rulfo

• Born into a family of landowners in 1918
• Experienced the Mexican Revolution, which led to
  his families financial ruin
• Highly Educated
• In 1947, he married Clara Aparicio
• Co-founded the literary review Pan
• Numerous jobs throughout his life
• Died in Mexico City on January 7, 1986

3
Juan Rulfos Literature

• Short story collection The Burning Plain
• Pedro Paramo (1955)
• Pedro Paramo was a model for Gabriel Garcia
  Marquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude
• National Literature prize in 1970
• Challenged naturalism by mixing reality and
  fantasy. He uses short sentences, concentrates on
  behavior rather than states of consciousness,
  presents no clear judgment of characters, often
  uses monologue.
• Themes father-son relationships, flashbacks of
  violence, upside-down chronology, haunting
  visions, burden of guilt and death.

4
Juan Rulfos Influences

• Nordic writers as Knut Hamsun, Selma Lagerlöf,
  F.E. Sillanpää, and Halldor K. Laxness.
• Emily Brontë
• William Faulkner

5
William Faulkner

• Born in 1897
• Old southern family
• Oxford, Mississippi
• University of Mississippi
• Alcoholic
• Jobs New York bookstore, New Orleans newspaper,
  and briefly as a screenwriter in Hollywood
• Wrote most of his novels on his farm in Oxford
• Won the Novel Prize in Literature in 1949
• Died in 1962

6
Faulkners Literature

• The South
• The imaginary setting- Yoknapatawpha Country
• Often dealing with issues of racism and prejudice
• The Sound and the Fury (1929)
• Sanctuary (1931)
• Light in August (1932)
• Requiem for a Nun (1951)
• Intruder in the Dust 1948
• Absalom, Absalom! (1936)
• Wrote the screen play for Raymond Chandlers The
  Big Sleep
• Noteworthy aspects of his literature-symbolism,
  allegory, multiple narrators, non-linear
  narrative, stream of conscious narrative.
• Experimental and stylized
• Opposite of the minimalism of Hemingway

7
Faulkners Influence on Latin America

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Juan Rulfo never openly gave credit to Faulkner

8
Faulkners influence on Pedro Paramo

• Absalom, Absalom!
• The Sound and the Fury- Faulkners fascination
  with a beautiful and tragic little girl, and
  Rulfos reluctance to analyze Susana San Juan
• Light in August- Joe Christmas and Pedro are
  annihilated by the fanaticism of traditional
  myth, history, religion, and society in their
  search for self-realization.

9
Absalom, Absalom!

• Thomas Sutpen
• Story is told in flashbacks by different
  characters
• Sutpen has slaves, builds a large plantation,
  marries Ellen Coldfield, and have Henry and
  Judith.
• Judith starts a relationship with a boy that
  Sutpen realizes is his son from a previous
  marriage.
• Henry kills his half brother when he realizes he
  is of mixed blood.
• Sutpins search for a wife who can bear him a son
  is his downfall.
• Allegorizes Southern history
• Mirrors the rise and fall of plantation culture
  and the fall of the south
• Racism leads to downfall

10
Absalom, Absalom and Pedro Paramo

• Technique- multiple narrative voices, not
  chronological, dialogue turns into monologue
• Themes- father -son relationships, downfall of
  financial situation, location driven, patriarchy,
  incest, racial prejudice
• Plot- Sutpen and Pedro Paramo are very similar
  father figures, have many women lovers,
  patriarchy figures. Mexican Revolution // Civil
  War

11
Patriarchy and Race

• Patriarchy-
• Sutpen- aggressive, over-confident, proud of his
  physical power, determined to succeed at all
  costs, desire for a dynasty, mistreats black
  people, women and his son
• Pedro- like Sutpen his origins were humble,
  determined to succeed, also feared and respected,
  absolute male, the patriarch whose power (both
  sexual and social) dominated the lives of those
  around him.
• Both men married women for patriarchal gain and
  then left them- Pedro with Dolares and her son.
  Sutpen abandons Eulalia Bon when he discovers her
  mixed blood
• Race is an issue in Pedro Paramo- Dolares is
  described as darker skinned, while the only woman
  that Pedro ever loved was described with blue
  eyes. Miguel had fair skin (104) and Pedro really
  loved him.

12
Incest

• Absalom, Absalom!
• Charles Bon and Judith, and homoerotic tension
  between Henry and Charles
• Sutpen wishes to marry the sister of his dead
  wife
• Pedro Paramo
• Brother and sister- Donis and the unnamed sister-
  the protagonist, Juan, is like the child but then
  sleeps in the same bed as her
• The womans body was made of earth, layered in
  crusts of earth it was crumbling, melting into a
  pool of mud. I felt myself swimming in the sweat
  streaming from her body, and I could not get
  enough air to breathe. I got out of bed. She was
  sleeping. From her mouth bubbled a sound very
  much like a death rattle (57)
• Sea of mud (51)
• Absalom, Absalom!- sexual union is associated
  with mud.

13
Bibliography

• Backman, Melvin. Sutpen and the South A Study
  of Absalom, Absalom! PMLA, Vol. 80, No. 5.
  (Dec., 1965), pp. 596-604.
• Gyurko, Lanin A. Rulfos Aesthetic Nihilism
  Narrative Antecedents of Pedro Paramo. Hispanic
  Review, Vol. No. 4 (Autumn, 1972) pp. 451-466.
• Hamblin, Robert W. and Charles A. Peek, Eds. A
  William Faulkner Encyclopedia. Connecticut
  Greenwood Press, pp. 220, 375.
• Michailidou, Artemis. Patriarchy and incest in
  William Faulkners Absalom! Absalom! and Juan
  Rulfos Pedro Paramo. Comparative American
  Studies. 2006
• Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Paramo. New York Grove Press,
  1994.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner
• http//nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laur
  eates/1949/faulkner-bio.html
• http//www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rulfo.htm
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absalom,_Absalom!