Juan Rulfo uses a fragmented structure in Pedro Páramo to provide plot and character information from the perspectives of different characters at different times. This allows the stories to resonate throughout the novel. Often this structure creates a feeling of ambiguity and confusion because Rulfo leaves interpretation to the reader and because of the non-linear aspect of the story. In this fragmented storyline, Rulfo uses sound and silence to add suspense and contribute to the setting and plot. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayJuan Rulfo wrote Pedro Páramo with changes in tension and perspectives of the different characters that add tension and reveal more and more more on the plot. With seventy fragments varying in time and perspectives, the reader must put the pieces of the puzzle together depending on how they interpret it. For example, when the narrative shifts from Juan to Pedro in fragment six, it confuses the reader because it does not initially indicate that the fragment is about Pedro. The reader only learns that fragments six through eight concern Pedro because Rulfo writes "'Pedro!' the people called him” at the end of fragment seven (Rulfo 14). These fragments, although confusing at first, are the first fragments directly involving Pedro. Rulfo uses them to introduce Pedro and allow the reader to learn a little more about his past. This also adds tension because it acts as a sort of facial reveal; before that, the reader cannot associate a character with the “Pedro Páramo” that Juan sets out to find. Rulfo uses both sound and silence to add suspense and truly embody the theme of the living and the dead in the novel. For example, in the third fragment there are no "children" or doves, and only silence can be heard. However, Juan still feels “that the city [is] alive” (8). This reflects the theme of the novel as there is a happy medium where the reader does not know how to tell the difference between the living and the dead. The absence of sounds of “children” and “doves” characterizes the strange and fantastical aspect of the novel. Rulfo implements another use of sound and silence in fragment twenty-eight. “It sounds. Voices Whispers. Singing in the distance… As if they were women singing” illustrates the ambiguity that Rulfo displays once again (46). This fragment describes "distant songs" which may or may not actually be heard. Rulfo writes “as if” instead of illustrating with a more precise tone that the women are actually singing. The scene leaves it up to the reader to decide what exactly is happening. A third example of a fragment where sound and silence appear prominently is found in fragment twenty-nine. The line “Empty carts, shattering the silence of the streets” once again represents the horror of the city (46). Rulfo uses lines like these to illustrate the silence that allows a sense of ambiguity to be present. The city simply seems dead, and this is partly due to the presence of silence. Rulfo also writes that there is an “echo of shadows” (46). The sound of shadows is quite ironic because shadows are just an image projected by an object, having no ability to emit noise. Pedro Páramo's fragmented structure allows certain stories to echo throughout the novel. For example, the story of Pedro Páramo himself comes up again and again. His story begins on page twelve, when Pedro was just a little boy. He thinks about Susana and how they would fly kites. Pedro thinks of her with.