Treatment of Religion and the Church in Pedro Paramo and...

Christianity has become, in over two millennia, the worlds largest religion, spreading to almost every corner of the world. Based on this fact, it does not come as much of a surprise that Juan Rulfos 1955 Mexican novel, Pedro Paramo, and Robertson Davies 1970 Canadian one, Fifth Business, are both largely affected by this pervasive religion. What is interesting, however, is that despite the vast differences in culture and time, a comparison can be made of the authors treatment of Christianity and the church in the books, which both come to similar conclusions. The first major similarity in the books on this particular subject is that both Rulfo and Davies show Christianity and the church as being flawed. Father Renteria, the local†¦show more content†¦Dempster as well as his familys and churchs failure to understand his interests in saints and magic that force him to realize one flaw of the Christian religion: its inability to capture the entire feeling of spirituality. One of the major faults that Rulfo portrays of the Church in Pedro Paramo, is that it fails in its main responsibility of providing moral standards to the people of Comala. The novel illustrates characters that have sinned more than any other, yet show little or no guilt. Rulfos book contains a careful listing of the cruelties that the Paramos inflicted on the people of Comala: Rumor has it that your brother was murdered by [Miguel Paramo] and you believe that your niece Ana was raped by him. 6, Pedro Paramo slaughtered so many folks after his father was murdered that he killed nearly everybody who attended that wedding. 7 However, despite these crimes, neither Miguel nor Pedro seems to feel any remorse for their actions. After listening to a number of women confess to having sinned for either sleeping with Pedro Paramo, or bearing his children, Father Renteria says, I kept waiting for him to come and confess something, but he never did. 8 Renteria also refuses to absolve Miguel at first, saying, [he] died without forgiveness. 9 Similarly, in Fifth Business, the character