Pedro Páramo's Retaliatory Starvation of Comala is Pedro’s response to the town’s unintentional but prolonged celebration while Susana San Juan is being buried. The bells that summon crowds and turn mourning into revelry sharpen the contrast between Comala’s noisy abundance and the silence of Media Luna; Pedro answers that contrast with a deliberate withdrawal that leaves the town hungry.

Causes and Background

At dawn on December 8, Comala’s bells began tolling. Some residents thought they announced the high Mass, but the ringing continued past its expected length, joined by bells from other churches. It lasted through the day and night, growing into a single, loud lament. After three days, people were deafened by the sound, and some bells had cracked.

The ringing drew people from Contla and farther away. Visitors first came to see what was happening; then they began to mingle, and serenades, musicians, a circus, tightrope dancers, and rides turned the gathering into a festival. Even after the bells stopped, the celebration continued, and those who had come could not be made to understand that Comala was in mourning or persuaded to leave.

Burial and Reversal

While the town filled with visitors, Media Luna was solitary and quiet. People walked barefoot and spoke softly as Susana San Juan was buried. Few in Comala noticed her funeral: the village’s light and revelry reached toward the estate, but its grief remained apart from them. The contrast is central to Pedro’s response—not simply that the town is noisy, but that its public celebration coincides with a death that matters intensely to him and passes almost unmarked there.

The bells thus produce an unintended reversal. A sound associated with mourning attracts more people instead of gathering a community around the bereaved. Once the tolling has become a spectacle and the visitors’ festivities take over, the occasion’s original meaning cannot restore order. The funeral and the celebration proceed side by side, separated by the distance between Media Luna’s subdued rooms and Comala’s crowded streets.

Pedro’s Retaliation

During those gray, sorrowful days at Media Luna, Pedro says nothing and does not leave his room. He swears revenge on Comala, deciding to fold his arms and let the town starve. The narrative confirms that he carries out this decision. His withdrawal is therefore not merely an expression of grief: it becomes an act directed against the town.

The response turns private bereavement into collective punishment. Comala’s revelers do not succeed in recognizing the funeral as a time of mourning, but Pedro’s answer makes the entire town bear the consequences of that failure. The account establishes the decision and its enactment without detailing the mechanics of how food is withheld or how individual residents fare.

Consequences and Significance

The episode sets two forms of silence against the din of the bells. Media Luna’s quiet belongs to the funeral and Pedro’s retreat; Comala’s sound swells until speech itself is difficult, then persists as festivity after the bells fall silent. Pedro’s vow gives that emotional and spatial division a material consequence: the town he regards as having failed to mourn is left hungry.

The retaliation also shows how the bells’ meaning changes in practice. Their tolling begins as an announcement of mourning, but the crowds convert it into a public celebration that cannot be made to stop. Pedro’s response reverses that movement: where the ringing brought people into Comala, his chosen inaction withdraws what sustains them. The passage links grief to power through consequence rather than reconciliation; no return to communal mourning is described.