Florianópolis, 03 de Março de 2009

THE VITAL MADNESS: SUSANA SAN JUAN IN RULFO’S PEDRO PÁRAMO
Por: André Cechinel*

In his book called Claves Narrativas de Juan Rulfo, Jose Carlos Gonzalez Boixo shows that there is some sort of confusion in the way critics approach the novel Pedro Páramo and the problem of its dead souls. The constant question posed and left partially unanswered would be the following: is Juan Preciado already dead when he reaches Comala, or does he die only after that?  To develop his own reading of this impasse, Boixo goes so far as to reduce to a scheme the position held by each critic: “Para unos, todos los personajes están ya muertos […]. Defienden esta postura Julio Ortega, Octavio Paz, Luis Harss […]. No todos los personajes están muertos […]. Esta postura es apoyada por Mariana Frenk, Luis Leal […]” (1980: 107). Despite this rough division of the various readings, Boixo accidentally points to something that ends up being of some relevance: critics are frequently taken by the attempt to solve an enigma that, in the end, may reveal itself as some sort of Sphinx without a secret. Perhaps “is he dead or alive?” is not enough to be aware of what is happening to the people of Comala. At times, these interpretations are much more interested in talking about a “fantastic reality” than in understanding why there are dead souls in Pedro Páramo.

Obviously, it is not sufficient to say that this is not the correct approach. Thus, I would sustain that in Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo what the reader faces is actually an effort to suspend the action of time, that is to say, the structure of the novel leads rather to a time in which time does not flow, and this is why any project directed to the drawing of a line between dead or alive fails to be convincing. In other words, the dilemma is that the entire endeavor to tell “who is who” cannot grasp the suspension of temporality - when time is suspended, everybody is automatically converted to a state of drowsiness, and being alive corresponds equally to being dead. After that, we are possibly closer to the correct question to be posed, which would be the following: why is it that we cannot tell for sure whether Juan Preciado is already dead by the time he arrives in Comala? From either/or, we move to a both/and logic, and then we are no longer interested in the mapping of the individual lives only, but in the mapping of the city and its people as a whole. If Rulfo is correct when he suggests that the city is the protagonist of Pedro Páramo (in Galindo 1984: 325), then we are on the right track.    

Still in the same book, Boixo celebrates the rich Mexican cultural background, capable of allowing Rulfo to portray a world in which "[...] entran constantemente en juego estas dos realidades de vida y muerte, que tan separadas se encuentran en nuestra cultura occidental moderna" (1980: 123). It is true that Rulfo explores this dimension, but certainly not with the intention of celebrating the spectral community that leads its naked life in Comala. In fact, Comala in its present situation – the situation in which Juan Preciado finds it when he gets there – is a result not of Mexico and its cyclical conception of nature; quite the opposite, Comala is a city ruled by objectivism, rationalism, deprived of any subjectivity whatsoever. When Juan Preciado tells Dorotea the reason why he came to Comala, he says: “Vine a buscar a Pedro Páramo, que según parece fue mi padre. Me trajo la ilusión”. In her reply, Dorotea confesses that "¿[l]a ilusión? Eso cuesta caro” (p. 66). Illusion, too high a price to pay in Comala, and this is what Juan Preciado finally realizes when he notices that his inheritance – the reason of his visit to the city – is lost forever.   

I argued before that Comala is controlled by a rationalizing principle. There are two basic and interconnected forces playing this role in the novel: 1) Pedro Páramo’s pragmatism and his desire to (materially and spiritually) possess everything, which results in a devastating attitude towards the people under his command, i.e., the whole town. As Alberto Vital says (1993: 120), “[p]ara Pedro Páramo el deseo es intolerable porque es en suma lo en sí inconseguible, mientras que la posesión es lo conseguido, el deseo subyugado en la materia que se posee, se pesa y se acumula.” 2) Padre Rentería’s alliance with Pedro Páramo, together with his compulsive concern with guiltiness, from which he himself cannot escape. In Luis Ortega Galindo’s words (1984: 346), “[l]os personajes de la novela, todos, parecen estar condenados, y viven bajo la obsesión del pecado o de culpa,” this feeling being reinforced by Rentería’s constant denial of redemption. Of course, one could dispute that, as a priest, Rentaría cannot stand on the side of reason. Still, as Rulfo constantly stresses in his remarks on the novel, "la fe fanática produce precisamente la antifé, la negación de la fe" (in Campbell 2003: 195). Therefore, we are bound to understand Rentería under the sign of faithlessness, sided with Pedro Páramo and his unlawful authority.    

In this sense, whenever talking about the city of Comala, we must bear in mind that this is a site where illusion has been lost, and for the traveler who arrives there for the first time, the place immediately shows its power of disillusionment. As mentioned, illusion cannot be uphold as valid in a territory so deeply affected by the religious sense of guilt adjusted with Pedro Páramo’s centralizing conduct. When Abundio tries to give an account of what Pedro Páramo owns, he says: “¿Ve aquella loma que parece vejiga de puerco? Pues detrasito de ella está la Media Luna. Ahora voltié para allá. ¿Ve la ceja de aquel cerro? Véala. Y ahora voltié para este otro rumbo. ¿Ve la otra ceja que casi no se ve de lo lejos que está? Bueno, pues eso es la Media Luna de punta a cabo” (p. 12) - that is, Pedro Páramo is the proprietor of everything around. What we do not know at this point is that, apart from this large extension of land, Pedro Páramo owns more, much more: he controls the law, he manipulates religion, and he directs the work done in Comala; nothing escapes his dominium. Ultimately, this is a place for ghosts, since nothing is their own (not even their bodies), and yet this is where they live, removed from history, from the course of time, and regulated by the frequently rearranged institutional instances.

One correction here: as a matter of fact, there is one character in Rulfo’s novel that manages to occupy a position that cannot fully satisfy Pedro Páramo’s will to subjugate everybody, and as amazing as it may seem, this is exactly the person he loves the most: Susana San Juan. As Pedro Páramo himself recognizes, Susana is "[u]na mujer que no era de este mundo” (p. 115). Of course, if Susana does not belong entirely to this world, which is the world of reason, she cannot be put under the regulations that please Pedro Páramo, for they are those of the objective mind. In a world of ghosts, Susana may be taken as the only character provided with some sense of interior life; as Vital remarks (1993: 120), “Pedro Páramo es un pragmático absoluto ante todo lo que no es Susana […]”. But it is not only Pedro Páramo who fails to grasp Susana and her behavior: Padre Rentería, who is another instance of a controlling agency, understands that Susana does not recognize institutional religion as a means of being purified; instead, she remains alien to any sense of guilt, that is to say, she situates herself outside the logic of the Christian resentment. As we know, in Pedro Páramo Susana is referred to as a mad woman; as Justina formulates, “[l]a señora está perdida para todos” (p. 117).  

   
 ***

It is important once again not to mix the pragmatism that transforms Comala into a site of murmurs with the mythological standpoint from which the city is reenacted. For example, when María Luisa Ortega (2004, 77) alludes to the fact that "[i]ngresamos de repente a un espacio y a un tiempo que eluden toda racionalidad, a un universo ambiguo y enigmático, regido por la sensación, la intuición y el sentimiento que determinan la representación mítica […],” she is probably referring either to the experience of the reader or to that of Juan Preciado in the process of confronting his present view of Comala with that of his mother. To put it another way, even though Juan Preciado cannot tell who is dead and who is alive in Comala, this does not mean that he is in a city of vivid life; on the contrary, this is a place filled with dry echoes, memories of a time that cannot be the present time. It is the gap between his recalling of what his mother used to say – “‘Hay allí […] la vista muy hermosa de una llanura verde, algo amarilla por el maíz maduro [...]’ – and what he actually sees – “Una bandada de cuervos pasó cruzando el cielo vacío […]” (p. 11) – that makes Juan Preciado’s saga a mythological one. As a result, in Pedro Páramo we must think of time past in contrast with time present, the latter being exactly the time in which time does not flow, that is, time present is the time of the ghosts removed from history, the moment when dead or alive, present or past lose their meaning as poles. Finally, time present is made of self-denial. 

As suggested before, Susana San Juan is the only character in the novel not to be an instrument of Pedro Páramo’s enterprise. Time present, this time of self-denial, is ruled by rationalism in its different possibilities, since religion itself is under the pragmatic view that controls Comala. Susana lives not in time present – this time in which time does not flow – but in the time of the recuerdos, the time of the memory. Naturally, once denied that which is the “lucid” rule, that is to say, Pedro Páramo’s power and Rentería’s path to paradise, Susana is classified under the category of madness, once again a rationalizing category. The woman is in love with Florencio, a relationship that cannot be realized any longer, for the man is already dead – he can only be evoked in her memories: “Susana San Juan, semidormida, estiró la lengua y se tragó la hostia. Después dijo: ‘Hemos pasado un rato muy feliz, Florencio’” (p. 118). Still, this that would be her end is, in fact, her beginning: as Yvette Jiménez de Báez affirms, “[…] la locura, el sueño, el silencio y el deseo de Florencio el esposo, autoprotegen a Susana San Juan de la unión con Pedro Páramo […]” (1990: 216).  

Objectively speaking, Pedro Páramo has control over Comala as a whole, since Rentería relies on his support for the church – "[p]orque ésta es la verdad; ellos me dan mi mantenimiento. De los pobres no consigo nada;” (p. 36) – and the law, represented by the character of Gerardo, is inexpressive and, above all, readjustable: “Con papeles o sin ellos, ¿quién me puede discutir la propiedad de lo que tengo?” (p. 109). As an example, the marriage that led to the loss of Dolores’ property is, after all, a result of this imposed agreement among official institutions and Pedro Páramo. As we know, due to his family’s debts, Pedro Páramo has basically lost everything he had. Still, his solution to the problem (a very practical one) is to marry Dolores Preciado, who “[…] ha quedado como dueña de todo” (p. 42). In order to marry her and arrive at her property, Pedro puts into his service not only Padre Rentería and the church – “El padre cura quiere sesenta pesos por pasar por alto lo de las amonestaciones" – but also the possibility of “rewriting” the law: “La ley de ahora en adelante la vamos a hacer nosotros” (p. 46). To repeat, in objective terms nothing can slip away from Pedro Páramo and his manipulative influence.  

However, that which transcends the pragmatic mind – that which “está perdido para todos” – even if objectively dominated, cannot be entirely realized. Later on in the novel, the reader is informed that Pedro Páramo’s present wife is precisely Susana San Juan, the “mad” woman. We could initially believe that, being married to him, Susana is too under his regime, and therefore no longer free to live her previous relationship. Yet, any confrontation between this marriage and that of Pedro Páramo and Dolores may clarify their totally different locations. On the one hand, Pedro"s marriage to Dolores, which was guided by an objective intention ("El matrimonio no es asunto de si haya o no haya luna”), conduces to a total oblivion – Dolores loses everything she had and is left behind to live with her sister. Pedro Páramo, in any case, does not care about her at all: “‘- Quería más a su hermana que a mí. Allá debe estar a gusto. Además ya me tenía enfadado. No pienso inquirir por ella, si es eso lo que te preocupa’” (p. 25). On the other hand, Pedro’s union with Susana is the partial fulfillment of a childhood’s dream: “‘Miraba caer las gotas iluminadas por los relámpagos, y cada que respiraba suspiraba, y cada vez que pensaba, pensaba en ti, Susana’” (p. 21).

As mentioned before, Pedro Páramo"s accomplishment is a limited one, since Susana reasons in a way that he is never capable of understanding. In other words, Pedro can only acknowledge the existence of that which contributes to his procedures, whereas Susana has an idealized view of what could have been, and in this sense she allows herself to deal with non-objective voices, even to the point of denying the external world. As Vital points out (1993: 118), “[s]u discurso explícito es mucho más parco que su monólogo interior, lleno de imágenes y de recuerdos.” The conceptual differences between the two seem to be irreconcilable. For example, when Pedro is told that his son Miguel has killed a man, he is unable to identify the relevance of the event: “– ¿De quién se trataba? – Es gente que no conozco. – No tienes pues por qué apurarte, Fulgor. Esa gente no existe” (p. 71). That is to say, while Susana denies what she can objectively relate to, Pedro refuses to confer full existence to those who interfere with his business. In Gustavo C. Fares" view (1991: 142), Susana “no es ‘una de las cosas,’ sino la única que no llegó a saber ni a dominar el caudillo. Su mundo, que lo comprendía todo, no tenía relación alguna con aquel que vivía Susana en su locura.”

Pedro Páramo cannot subdue Susana due to the fact that she situates herself outside the idea of possession; he thinks of her in terms that do not correspond to how she really is and acts. In the following passage, for instance, Pedro declares that to please Susana he fought hard to “have everything” she might have needed: “‘Esperé treinta años a que regresaras, Susana. Esperé a tenerlo todo. No solamente algo, sino todo lo que se pudiera conseguir de modo que no nos quedara ningún deseo, solo el tuyo, el deseo de ti’” (p. 88). Pedro is wrong about two basic things: 1) He moves toward the will to put an end to his desires, while Susana is the very expression of desire and its constant demands; 2) Susana lives in a world of memories, that is, a world incompatible with the notion of control, whereas he wishes to “have it all,” to control it all. Obviously, this unbalance stands for what her madness would be, since reason and objectivity dictate the norms in Comala. According to Celene García Ávila (in Mena1998: 115), 

Susana San Juan fisura y destruye el poder de Pedro Páramo; es la única persona que él nunca podrá poseer. De nada ha valido la dolorosa espera de treinta años, ni, las noches en vela, ni el recuerdo intacto de nostalgia y deseo, ni todas las tierras, ni todas las mujeres poseídas, porque, contra lo que Páramo suponía, no era indispensable la posesión de todas las riquezas para ser amado por “la mujer que no era de este mundo.”  

In addition to contradicting Pedro Páramo’s limitless authority, Susana San Juan challenges the possibility of redemption obtained through Rentería and the idea of guilt. As a matter of fact, Juan Rulfo desacralizes the church by showing that it is the very imposition of guilt that transforms the people of Comala into ghosts removed from history. The passage on the incestuous couple may be illuminating: “- ¿No me ve el pecado? ¿No ve esas manchas moradas como de jiote que me llenan de arriba abajo? Y eso es sólo por fuera; por dentro estoy hecha un mar de lodo” (p. 57). And later on, “Y ésa es la cosa por la que esto está lleno de ánimas; un puro vagabundear de gente que murió sin perdón y que no lo conseguirá de ningún modo [...]” (p. 58). In Pedro Páramo, redemption is denied to all those who cannot afford its price - the price being at times not a metaphysical matter, but money itself. It is in terms of accumulation that salvation is accomplished: as Rentería formulates in relation to the suicide of Eduviges Dyada, “- Falló a última hora. […] En el último momento. !Tantos bienes acumulados para su salvación, y perderlos así de pronto!” (p. 36). Salvation, in this case, seems like gambling, and everything might be lost at any time.  

Susana San Juan repudiates the dominium of the church in its present condition in different moments of Pedro Páramo; still, two particular passages show exactly the kind of criticism she has in mind when she does so. Right after her mother died, Susana is pressured to donate some money to the church, so that the “misas gregorianas” can help the soul to break free from earthly bonds. It is evident her irritation: “¿Que vienen por el dinero de las misas gregorianas? Ella no dejó ningún dinero. Díselos, Justina. ¿Que no saldrá del Purgatorio si no le rezan esas misas? ¿Quiénes son ellos para hacer la justicia, Justina? ¿Dices que estoy loca? Está bien” (p. 84). As we can see, Susana immediately reduces the abstract content of the request to its worldly and true reason: it is a matter of money. Besides that, Susana is very much conscious of the fact that this denial is followed by the imposed idea that she is mad – she knows that hers is a constructed madness. Finally, she understands justice as something beyond the materiality of the institutions; it is to be found somewhere else.     

The second passage again has to do with death, but this time we are dealing with Susana"s own final moments. Padre Rentería wants the dying woman to show signs of regret for her sinful life, so that he can give her his final blessing and then she can die in peace: “Sólo vine a platicar contigo. A prepararte para la muerte.” For Rentería, peace can only be achieved after his own permission. Surprisingly (or not), Susana leads the dialogue astray: “- ¿Ya me voy a morir? – Sí, hija. ¿- Por qué entonces no me deja en paz? Tengo ganas de descansar” (p. 120). The woman too wants to be at peace; nevertheless, for her being at peace means a different thing, it means precisely getting rid of the priest as soon as possible. As Maria Luisa Ortega accurately explains (2004: 96), Susana confesses “desde sí misma,” and this represents her particular position in Pedro Páramo: “La voz que se confiesa desde sí misma, desde lo más hondo del desconsuelo, verifica el único encuentro posible con lo ‘sagrado’, realiza la transcendencia y vuelve a nacer desde el silencio.”   

Ortega’s formulation is very important, especially because it refuses any suggestion that Susana might be a woman deprived of spiritual life. Instead of resorting to Padre Rentería to “purify” herself, Susana makes this a task of her own. It goes without saying that the place she chooses for purification is nature itself: “- Me gusta bañarme en el mar – le dije. Pero él no comprende. Y al otro día estaba otra vez en el mar, purificándome. Entregándome a sus olas” (p. 103). As the monologue shows, Susana is not understood in her ritualistic bathing; in Comala, purification must be carried out under official agencies. Her “madness,” as seen, derives from this inapprehensible behavior. However, there is a moment in the novel in which a character referred to a doña Fausta hints at Susana’s possible salvation through what is taken to be a disease - she has not received the priest’s blessing, but she is different, maybe higher than the church itself: “[…] nadie desearía que se fuera sin los auxilios espirituales, y que siguiera penando en la otra vida. Aunque dicen los zahorinos que a los locos no les vale la confesión, y aun cuando tengan el alma impura son inocentes” (p. 119).

It is necessary to stop for a while at this point. Once again, what does Susana"s “madness” really consist of? As we know, it is a category imposed on her because she denies both Pedro Páramo"s territorial domain and Rentería"s spiritual guidance. Her "madness" is some sort of return to the world of nature, as opposed to the following of an institutional path toward redemption. In fact, Susana proposes a less mediated practice, in which the body is purified through bodily experience – when talking about Florencio’s death, she complains that the Lord only occupies himself with the spiritual world, while she is much more concerned with the world of the flesh: “Que me lo cuidaras. Eso te pedí. Pero tú te ocupas nada más de las almas. Y lo que yo quiero de él es su cuerpo. Desnudo y caliente de amor; hirviendo de deseos” (p. 107). In Celene García Ávila’s view (in Mena 1998: 116), “[l]a religión de Susana es el amor que siente por Florencio.” Elaborating on that, we could even say that her religion is the love for life, represented in Pedro Páramo by a desperate rejection of non-historical time, present time and its marginalizing movements. 

    
 ***

There is a moment in Pedro Páramo when Damiana Cisneros describes the city of Comala as a place full of echoes: “- Este pueblo está lleno de ecos. Tal parece que estuvieran encerrando en el hueco de las paredes o debajo de las piedras” (p. 47). In her portrait of Comala, Damiana underlines some sort of gap that seems to exist there, hollow walls that capture the murmur of a time no longer at hand. In some cases, these fissures of time exhibit the distance between what Comala was and what it is now: "Y en días de aire se ve al viento arrastrando hojas de árboles, cuando aquí, como tú ves. no hay árboles. Los hubo en algún tiempo, porque si no ¿de donde saldrían esas hojas?” (p. 47). Where do these leaves come from? Susana San Juan may be the only character that, by rejecting the present time, that is to say, by refusing to take Pedro Páramo and Rentería as the only possible directions for physical and spiritual life, is capable of catching a glimpse of Comala in its moment of splendor. When she dies, the city of Comala does not recognize her death; people are having a party: "Allá había feria. Se jugaba a los gallos, se oía la música; los gritos de los borrachos y de las loterías" (p. 124). If Susana’s death is paralleled with a celebration, Pedro Páramo’s last moment, once again, bears the sign of materiality and its insufficiency as the basis for the city: “Dio un golpe seco contra la tierra y se fue desmoronando como si fuera un montón de piedras” (p. 132).  

Works Cited
Báez, Yvette Jiménez de. 1990. Juan Rulfo: Del Páramo a la Esperanza. Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Econômica.
Boixo, Jose C. Gonzalez. 1980. Claves Narrativas de Juan Rulfo. Colegio Universitario de León.
Campbell, Federico. 2003. La Ficción de la Memoria: Juan Rulfo ante la crítica. Ciudad de México: Ediciones Era.
Fares, Gustavo C. 1991. Imaginar Comala: el espacio en la obra de Juan Rulfo. New York: P. Lang.
Galindo, Luis Ortega. 1984. Expresión y Sentido de Juan Rulfo. Madrid: Ediciones José Porrúa Turanzas, S. A.
Mena, Sergio López. 1998. Revisión Crítica de la Obra de Juan Rulfo. Ciudad de México: Editorial Praxis.
Ortega, María Luisa. 2004. Mito y Poesía en la Obra de Juan Rulfo. Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre Editores.
Rulfo, Juan. 2006. Pedro Páramo y El Llano en Llamas. Barcelona: Editorial Planeta.
Vital, Alberto. 1993. Lenguaje Y Poder en Pedro Páramo. Ciudad de México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes.

*André Cechinel é ensaísta e reside atualmente em Nova York, onde escreve uma tese sobre Eliot e João Cabral de Melo Neto.