Inés Villalpando Character Analysis

Inés is the owner of a small local store in Comala, who appears at the very beginning and very end of the book. At the beginning, she extends credit to the destitute Páramo family so that they can replace their broken mill. At the end, she sells alcohol to the Abundio Martínez, heartbroken and grieving his wife’s death, shortly before he kills Pedro Páramo. Whereas she starts out in a position of power over Pedro Páramo but uses it to help empower Pedro’s family, she ends up in the same conditions as she started, watching Comala deteriorate because Pedro uses his own power to take as much of the town’s wealth as possible for himself. Nevertheless, Inés Villalpando is able to pass her store on to her son, Gamaliel, which illustrates the usual pattern of inheritance that Pedro Páramo otherwise disrupts in Comala.