Pedro Páramo

by

Juan Rulfo

Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) Character Analysis

Dolores is Juan Preciado’s mother, who dies in the novel’s opening paragraph. On her deathbed, she urges Juan return to her hometown and his birthplace, Comala, and claim his rightful inheritance from his father, Pedro Páramo. Throughout her life, she frequently told Juan about her fond memories of Comala, which was lush and fertile in her youth. Juan is astonished, then, to find that the town has since been turned into a barren wasteland. In Comala, Juan finally learns his mother’s life story: she married Pedro Páramo out of naivety—he just wanted her family’s land—and then left Comala forever to escape Pedro’s abuse. The voice of her ghost briefly reappears in later parts of the novel, but she is not fully able to make contact with Juan, even after he dies in Comala. As a result, other maternal figures—Eduviges Dyada, Damiana Cisneros, Donis’s sister, and Dorotea—take over for her, and the city of Comala itself becomes his family and point of origin. It’s no coincidence that these women’s names all start with (or prominently feature) the letter “D,” just like Dolores’s. Juan’s journey to Comala is therefore in large part a quest to symbolically reunite with his deceased mother, both by literally finding her ghost (if she returns upon her death) and by better understanding her life story.

Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) Quotes in Pedro Páramo

The Pedro Páramo quotes below are all either spoken by Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) or refer to Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Death, Hope, and Despair Theme Icon
).
Fragments 1-12, Pages 3-24 Quotes

I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived there. It was my mother who told me. And I had promised her that after she died I would go see him. I squeezed her hands as a sign I would do it. She was near death, and I would have promised her anything. “Don’t fail to go see him,” she had insisted. “Some call him one thing, some another. I’m sure he will want to know you.” At the time all I could do was tell her I would do what she asked, and from promising so often I kept repeating the promise even after I had pulled my hands free of her death grip.
Still earlier she had told me: “Don’t ask him for anything. Just what’s ours. What he should have given me but never did… Make him pay, son, for all those years he put us out of his mind.”

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

I had expected to see the town of my mother’s memories, of her nostalgia—nostalgia laced with sighs. She had lived her lifetime sighing about Comala, about going back. But she never had. Now I had come in her place. I was seeing things through her eyes, as she had seen them. She had given me her eyes to see. Just as you pass the gate of Los Colimotes there’s a beautiful view of a green plain tinged with the yellow of ripe corn. From there you can see Comala, turning the earth white, and lighting it at night. Her voice was secret, muffled, as if she were talking to herself… Mother.

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:

Water dripping from the roof tiles was forming a hole in the sand of the patio. Plink! plink! and then another plink! as drops struck a bobbing, dancing laurel leaf caught in a crack between the adobe bricks. The storm had passed. Now an intermittent breeze shook the branches of the pomegranate tree, loosing showers of heavy rain, spattering the ground with gleaming drops that dulled as they sank into the earth. The hens, still huddled on their roost, suddenly flapped their wings and strutted out to the patio, heads bobbing, pecking worms unearthed by the rain. As the clouds retreated the sun flashed on the rocks, spread an iridescent sheen, sucked water from the soil, shone on sparkling leaves stirred by the breeze.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo, Susana San Juan, Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Related Symbols: Rain and Water
Page Number: 11-12
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 13-23, Pages 25-41 Quotes

“Tomorrow morning we’ll begin to set our affairs in order. We’ll begin with the Preciado women. You say it’s them we owe the most?”
“Yes. And them we’ve paid the least. Your father always left the Preciados to the last. I understand that one of the girls, Matilde, went to live in the city. I don’t know whether it was Guadalajara or Colima. And that Lola, that is, doña Dolores, has been left in charge of everything. You know, of don Enmedio’s ranch. She’s the one we have to pay.”
“Then tomorrow I want you to go and ask for Lola’s hand.”
“What makes you think she’d have me? I’m an old man.”
“You’ll ask her for me. After all, she’s not without her charms. Tell her I’m very much in love with her. Ask her if she likes the idea.”

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Fulgor Sedano (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
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Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) Quotes in Pedro Páramo

The Pedro Páramo quotes below are all either spoken by Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) or refer to Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Death, Hope, and Despair Theme Icon
).
Fragments 1-12, Pages 3-24 Quotes

I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived there. It was my mother who told me. And I had promised her that after she died I would go see him. I squeezed her hands as a sign I would do it. She was near death, and I would have promised her anything. “Don’t fail to go see him,” she had insisted. “Some call him one thing, some another. I’m sure he will want to know you.” At the time all I could do was tell her I would do what she asked, and from promising so often I kept repeating the promise even after I had pulled my hands free of her death grip.
Still earlier she had told me: “Don’t ask him for anything. Just what’s ours. What he should have given me but never did… Make him pay, son, for all those years he put us out of his mind.”

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother) (speaker), Pedro Páramo
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

I had expected to see the town of my mother’s memories, of her nostalgia—nostalgia laced with sighs. She had lived her lifetime sighing about Comala, about going back. But she never had. Now I had come in her place. I was seeing things through her eyes, as she had seen them. She had given me her eyes to see. Just as you pass the gate of Los Colimotes there’s a beautiful view of a green plain tinged with the yellow of ripe corn. From there you can see Comala, turning the earth white, and lighting it at night. Her voice was secret, muffled, as if she were talking to herself… Mother.

Related Characters: Juan Preciado (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:

Water dripping from the roof tiles was forming a hole in the sand of the patio. Plink! plink! and then another plink! as drops struck a bobbing, dancing laurel leaf caught in a crack between the adobe bricks. The storm had passed. Now an intermittent breeze shook the branches of the pomegranate tree, loosing showers of heavy rain, spattering the ground with gleaming drops that dulled as they sank into the earth. The hens, still huddled on their roost, suddenly flapped their wings and strutted out to the patio, heads bobbing, pecking worms unearthed by the rain. As the clouds retreated the sun flashed on the rocks, spread an iridescent sheen, sucked water from the soil, shone on sparkling leaves stirred by the breeze.

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo, Susana San Juan, Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Related Symbols: Rain and Water
Page Number: 11-12
Explanation and Analysis:
Fragments 13-23, Pages 25-41 Quotes

“Tomorrow morning we’ll begin to set our affairs in order. We’ll begin with the Preciado women. You say it’s them we owe the most?”
“Yes. And them we’ve paid the least. Your father always left the Preciados to the last. I understand that one of the girls, Matilde, went to live in the city. I don’t know whether it was Guadalajara or Colima. And that Lola, that is, doña Dolores, has been left in charge of everything. You know, of don Enmedio’s ranch. She’s the one we have to pay.”
“Then tomorrow I want you to go and ask for Lola’s hand.”
“What makes you think she’d have me? I’m an old man.”
“You’ll ask her for me. After all, she’s not without her charms. Tell her I’m very much in love with her. Ask her if she likes the idea.”

Related Characters: Pedro Páramo (speaker), Fulgor Sedano (speaker), Dolores Preciado (Juan’s Mother)
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis: