The Revolutionaries

Tilcuate Damasio and Perseverancio

Although the Mexican Revolution is not a central theme of the novel, its aftermath is. The narrative does not depict the armed struggle; instead, it reveals its backdrop—the thirst to transform the order of things, to bring about political and social changes that would end the absolute power wielded by landowners like Pedro Páramo. The hope that resistance might improve living conditions in the country shapes the fate of Comala and its inhabitants, who are weary of an existence under inhumane rule.

Tilcuate Damasio and Perseverancio are two characters who represent opposing positions within the complexity of the revolutionary movement.

Tilcuate Damasio

Tilcuate changes his clothing, shedding peasant garb and replacing it with a charro suit to infiltrate the revolutionary ranks on Páramo's orders, so he can control and manipulate from within any attempt to usurp his lands or power.

Tilcuate wears a suede jacket and vest with wool pants, a cotton shirt, silk bow tie, charro boots, and a felt hat with a piloncillo (conical) crown. Unlike most insurgents, he fastens his cartridge belts above his belt where his pistol holster sits, both made of leather. The revolutionaries typically protected their ankles with leather mitazas, a type of gaiter.

Perseverancio

This peasant rises up genuinely against oppression and the abuse of power. His clothes imply a lower social extract than Damasio's—it's not leather but wool, with loom-woven wool pants, a cotton bow tie, and a palm piloncillo hat, not felt. Perseverancio does cross his cartridge belts over his chest, like most of the rebels, to demonstrate his bravery, his willingness to fight and die for his ideals.