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Pedro Páramo Section 36 Summary

  • This conversation is really creepy, and probably not good for anyone with claustrophobia. Someone named Dorotea, who Juan doesn't really know (he thinks it's a man named Doroteo at first) says that Juan was playing dead, acting like he'd died of fright, but that they found him and buried him.
  • Juan remembers some more of his mother's nostalgic memories of Comala.
  • He tells Dorotea that all the voices killed him, and that he died of fright. He walked to the plaza, where he heard a lot of voices, because he thought the people might help him.
  • Juan leaned against a pillar in the plaza. There was no one there, but he could still hear voices saying "Pray for us." Then his soul turned to ice and he died.
  • Dorotea tells him that she had always wanted to find her son, even though she never had one. She also says that she's dead, and has had a lot of time to think about life.
  • She used to have a good dream that she had a son, but then also had a bad dream that she lost her baby, that she actually wasn't able to become pregnant.
  • In the bad dream she goes to heaven, searching for her son, and a saint pulls a nutshell out of her stomach to prove that she has the "womb of a whore." Yup, Doratea isn't the sanest tool in the shed.
  • She wandered the town and waited to die, and ended up buried in the same casket with Juan Preciado.
  • Dorotea tells Juan to get cozy, because they're going to be in the ground together for a loooooong time. Ugh.