Juan Rulfo wrote Pedro Páramo in 1955 to reflect on Mexico's troubled history through the lens of the Mexican Revolution in the early part of the twentieth century. Pedro Páramo, the fictional titular character, is a landowner during the Revolution, but he is also the cruel ruler of the town of Comala; Pedro Paramo ultimately allows the town to die.

Violence, fear, and worry were all present throughout Mexico during its revolutionary civil war. Haunting ghosts are used in the novel to allow Rulfo to describe the violence, fear, and worry which plagued Mexico during this time. Rulfo therefore remains loyal to a style of Latin American Gothic writing in this novel, using paranormal presences as a means for expressing stories of the country's troubled history during the civil war. Many voices in the novel relate to the thoughts and emotions of the dead, and these ghostly voices are meant to be portrayed as disembodied characters—which are connected to places and times in Mexico.

The Gothic tone and spirit of the novel is most apparent in the haunting of the ghosts within the town of Comala, which becomes a prison of fear in the novel. Gothic novels tend to provide glimpses of the past and the future by using spirits connected to the past and people of the present. The novel is also more focused on the voices of the dead townspeople of Comala than on Paramo himself. The town is filled with death and despair, and Rulfo amazingly captures the Gothic style and applies it to the rural town.