Category: All the Pretty Horses

In literature it is not uncommon for the author to give an essential character an atypical, unfamiliar background for the sake of grabbing the readers attention and to set up a gripping story. This is the case with the origins of the protagonist John Grady Cole, in All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. John Grady Cole is a boy, looking for freedom from his broken home on the southern border of the United States. Cole comes from a long lineage of ranchers, and has dreams of one day taking over the ranch, but it has already been sold. Cole decides to leave America to head south in search of his idealistic, traditionalist, dream of a cowboy rancher; because the times have changed in America, and that golden western era has passed. As a sixteen year old boy, Cole experiences an identity crisis during a changing time, a lacking in knowing who he is or what he is supposed to be, launching him into ever changing world that he is not prepared to take on, with the lacking of his identity, he leaves America to search for something greater.

“Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and dimly lit above the narrow wainscoting. He looked down at the guttered candle stub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed mustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping.” (1 McCarthy) The very opening of the book takes place with a symbolic end of an era with the passing of Cole’s grandfather, the last rancher in the family. “The Grady name was buried with that old man the day the norther blew the lawn chairs over the dead cemetery grass.” (7 McCarthy) Cole has no one to lookup now in his life, completely isolated from his mother and father. Cole and his best friend Rawlins pack their few belongings and go on their adventure in Mexico where they soon realize, it’s nothing what they expected it to be like. There is a contrast between Cole and Rawlins while they’re out in the desert, Cole makes decisions based on romantic ideals and dreams, and Rawlins bases his on his more nihilistic, realistic perception. They meet a young boy name Blevins on a stolen horse, with a stolen gun. Cole and Rawlins make a decision on whether to let Blevins stay, after arguing, Rawlins backs down to Cole. The reason Cole allows Blevins to stay with them even though they know it’s a bad idea is because Cole can see himself in Blevins. Both are boys who have no where to go to, on a search for a place of belonging, a place to call home.

Cole’s thirty six year old mother is off pursuing her own dreams of becoming an actress. He is distant from her and has resentment for her because she sold the ranch, Cole never actually says her name, he only refers to her as “she”. With his lacking of loyalty or consideration from his mother in his life, it’s not surprising to see how quickly he falls in love with Alejandra, the only female in his life he doesn’t have a negative connotation of. His love affair with her is short term and not long lasting, much like his childhood and dreams. Cole thought he would work his way into the family business, becoming a rancher and live out his western dream. When Alejandra’s father finds out about the two of them, there is a parallel between their forced separation and his separation from his dreams and family back in the United States.

Cole’s unusual origin of being born in a changing society, a broken family, and his lack of identity from a young age all tie into the overall themes of the novel. There are major themes of: loss of innocence, romanticism and faith, and fate. Cole believed that you can change any scenario you are in to get a positive outcome. Alfonsa is the direct counter to Cole’s aspirations, telling him about societal and family roles and stereotypes. Alfonsa reprimands Cole for his desire to be with Alejandra, saying he’s too innocent and doesn’t know how the world works. When Cole returns, he returns as a man, learning his lessons of tragedy, fate, and growth through his struggles. As he heads back to the border, there is a willingness in him, to accept the changing age, because it won’t stop for him.

When you were young, did you ever want to leave your frustrations and set off on an adventure? Just you and your best friend off to a new place, away from a chaotic life. All the Pretty Horses is a tale of love, violence, and friendship. The book starts off with the protagonist John Grady, and his best friend Lacey Rawlins, going off towards Mexico for an adventure without knowing the consequences. As the boys struggle through hardships far beyond what they expect from their adventure, the book explores many themes like the idea of the American West, romanticism, violence and more. The main themes present throughout the whole book are the themes of love, coming of age and violence, which give the book it’s true voice and meaning. The theme of love through John Gardy’s love for horses and Alejandra, th, and violence through the events in the jail.

Cormac McCarthy represents the theme of love through the protagonist John Grady Cole and his relations with a young beautiful girl at the hacienda, Alejandra. While reading the book one can also relate that the author wanted to show the same story as William Shakespeare showed in his Romeo and Juliet. The young man John who was only 16 met a beautiful young girl Alejandra, the daughter of Rocha, at La Purisima hacienda where he and his friend Rawlins came to work as cowboys. The first time he saw her riding on a black Arabian horse and fell in love with her. In spite of warnings of Donna Alfonsa who protected Alejandra the young man and the young girl started to have rides at night time together, they went swimming at the lake together. They became lovers. She came to his room every night for a period of nine nights and they were happy to make love. Like every love story, this love story wasn’t successful either. “What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God – who knows all that can be known – seems powerless to change.” (McCarthy, 199). Alfonsa says this to John Grady when he returns to Don Hector’s ranch to reclaim Alejandra. Alfonsa’s statement encapsulates her bitter view of the world. It could be argued that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy in that she contributes to the suffering of the world by denying John Grady and Alejandra the right to be together. In the end they Alejandra didn’t want John Grady to die so she left him, the love story was an important theme because it made John and his Rawlins go to jail.

In McCarthy’s, All the Pretty Horses, John Grady’s character is constantly used to romanticize and challenge the myth of a cowboy. In The Searchers, John Ford shows a different way to romanticize and challenge the myth of a cowboy. Even though the two authors represent the myth differently, the strong message of the myth still gets across to the reader. The myth is much more complex than one would imagine. McCarthy writes about the myth of the cowboy to show us that our ideals are not far from that of the cowboy and that humans cannot just live life in one orderly and perfect way. One strong message McCarthy gets across to the reader is that humans, even cowboys, make mistakes. Throughout the novel and the film, many things like the loss of innocence, the deaths, the depiction of violence, and gender roles, all develop and represent the significance of the myth and how it is related to the idea of realism. Grady is portrayed as a very complex and smart man; however, he still makes mistakes which makes him more realistic to the reader.

One major theme in the novel and the film is the depiction of violence. In the film, we see a lot of blatant violence, constant gunfire, and blood. In the novel, there is also a lot of violence, but when there is it seems like it is for a more significant reason. The reader is made aware that this violence is just a way of life for a cowboy and it helps develop and thicken the plot and proves to the reader that in some ways John Grady is a stereotypical cowboy. After the boys were arrested, they went to jail and found Blevins there. He was suffering from injuries after going back to Encantada to retrieve his pistol. “What happened then? I didnt have no more shells. I’d shot em all up. My own damn fault. All I had was what was in the gun” (160). Blevins seemed to care more about his gun then his horse. His need for a pistol, a big sign of violence, causes problems for the boys. They were being transferred to another prison when Blevins was marched into the woods and shot to death. This shows how violence was such a big part of Blevins’ life, that it even ended it. This goes back to the ideas of why McCarthy wrote this novel, the portrayal of Blevins is showing how imperfect people can be, and how this is a normality.

Another big idea in the stories is gender, in All the Pretty Horses, woman and men are seen in different ways. All the boys are all very young; however, they have this independence and advanced skill of violence that is expected from the ideas of a stereotypical cowboy. On the flip side, women are constantly striving for independence, but are caught by social forces beyond their control. In both the novel and the film, women seem powerless and are shown as the stereotypical stay at home woman. In the end, Alejandra discovers that no matter how strong your will, it is not easy to fight social conventions about gender. Alejandra is limited by her role as the daughter of a wealthy man of society. She always has to adhere to many traditions regarding chastity, that do not apply to men. Despite her continuous efforts to break out of this role, she is sucked back into it through her relationship with her father. “There is no forgiveness. For women. A man may lose his honor and regain it again. But a women cannot. She cannot” (137). Alejandra could not lose the honor of her name as a man could. A man could regain his honor, she did not have that option. This can be compared to today’s society, to this day woman are still faced with gender inequality regularly. McCarthy shows another comparison of how the cowboy life can be so similar to our reality, even when speaking to gender norms.

Furthermore, a big part of the novel is death. Right at the beginning of the novel, there is the loss of John Grady’s Grandfather, which takes a big toll on him. Then, Grady went through the loss of Blevins. After this happens, Grady struggles to shake off the loss. Then, one of the most impactful losses in the book was the death of the cuchillero in prison. There are a lot of deaths throughout the novel, but this one seemed to impact John Grady the worst since he was the “killer.” Grady says, “I dont know. I dont know nothin about him. I never even knew his name. He could have been a pretty good old boy. I dont know. I dont know that he’s suppose to be dead” (291). Grady was guilty of the murder in the prison, and he tells the judge how he did not even know him, and that is what made it even worse. One thing everyone in this world can relate to is death, it sounds absurd, but at some point in our lives, we lose someone we know. Even if you did not know them at all, the situation can cause the loss to be seriously impactful. McCarthy speaks to this reality by facing John Grady with multiple deaths throughout the novel. The deaths help create a story that most readers can relate too, which causes a connection to John Grady. Showing the impact the deaths have on John Grady, challenges the myth of a cowboy, however, shows the reader that even though he is a cowboy, he still faces hard life events.

Another big part of the novel is the loss of innocence. Grady, Rawlins, and Blevins were all very young and went into the world with little experience. Little sixteen-year-old Grady went out into the world as a little innocent boy and throughout his journey, he lost a lot of his innocence due to experiences he had. Throughout his journey in Mexico, Grady uses many of his skills he learned growing up to help him complete daily jobs. Grady quickly gains respect and admiration from the Hacendado, which was very impressive to all the people around him. This impression John Grady makes helps romanticize the myth since he is good at his cowboy tasks. John Grady’s knowledge and skill enable him and Rawlins to manage in Mexico, and sometimes even comes in handy for survival. The crazy and severe events that Grady experiences throughout his journey takes a toll on his innocence. For example, after he killed the man in prison it took Grady a long time to process it. “I never thought I’d do that. You didnt have no choice. I still never thought it. He’d of done it to you. He drew on the cigarette and blew the smoke unseen into the darkness. You dont need to try to make it right. It is what it is” (215). Rawlins is trying to comfort Grady and tell him he had no choice but to protect himself, and Grady would not agree. Even though Grady has a lot of skills, his lack of experience in age shows. In a scene towards the end of the novel, John Grady shows up at the Texas judge’s house to ask him for advice, this similarly highlights how lost he can feel when faced with new experiences, realities, and choices. Many concepts of life are being shown, and the reader can see that expertise at certain skills is not equivalent to wisdom gained from life, which is true in our reality too.

In conclusion, the myth of a cowboy is much more complex than people know. In the novel and film, McCarthy and John Ford continually prove how the myth is so much deeper, and there is a lot more to it. McCarthy writes about the myth to show the reader that our ideals are not far from that of the cowboy and that humans cannot just live in such a perfect way. Overall one of the strongest messages McCarthy gets across to the reader is that humans make mistakes, and Grady’s loss of innocence, the patterns of death, gender, and the depiction of violence, are all shown to help the reader understand this idea. The theme of realism in the novel shows that not everything in your life will always be perfect, and you need to accept that.

In a story stuffed with gunshots and thrusts of a cut, it is a small shock that we hear so a lot about blood inside the book. Human blood is, of course, tied to the trouble of viciousness, in addition to the concept that for many Mexicans, nothing can be hooked up in case it is no longer made to bleed, as Alfonsa says round her character citizens. But blood too symbolizes the recreation to divulge oneself, to draw close mettle and carve out one’s possess personality. Rawlins stresses that his implantation of blood would possibly make him component Mexican a funny minute, however, one that too emphasizes how simple it is for the characters to join blood to national and persona character. In this system, blood ought to be spilled for blood this is why the charro contracts the captain to murder Blevins in revenge. Within the jail, John Grady realizes that someone’s blood ought to be spilled, which his, as it have been choice, is to murder or be slaughtered.

The novel dietary supplements this imagery with the symbolism of blood-red dusks and dust all pictures of savagery that take the Three horses in All the Pretty Horses are noteworthy sufficient that they can almost be thinking of as characters themselves: John Grady’s horse Redbo, Rawlins’ horse Junior, and Blevins’ anonymous big cove horse. Each has its possess character—John Grady’s is succesful and faithful, whereas Blevins’ is jumpier and increased finicky. They can too be humans’ companions: Redbo acknowledges John Grady through the use of whinnying when he comes to recover the horse in Encantada, for occurrence. But horses are more than the characters’ companions or factors of Western life internal the book: they are the connective line of the novel, drawing strains amongst characters, from characters to life-style and society, and between the exhibit and the past. John Grady feels an one of a kind family relationship to horses, which in this way come to stand in for the kind of companionship he finds higher transiently in companions, darlings, and in positive bodily places. Horses are in this way comparative in a few ways to guys as John Grady is recommended at one point, their souls are increased comparative to men’s souls than severa think. But horses in addition represent the complex, continuously transferring connections and associations between people and society. For lots of a lengthy time, horses have been set up through guys to go off to war, taking after the orders of far-away rulers, despots, and officers. Traveling quicker than human beings can on foot, they cowl higher flooring and can see larger than one personality can in a lifetime. John Grady watches all via the e book how the souls of steeds have borne witness to the most noteworthy cases of the world’s savagery and annihilation. It is proposed that steeds have, in truth, a single soul, one that makes a connection among all humans of the species in a way that John Grady regularly comes to properly known is incomprehensible for mankind. Instep, he areas he have faith and regard in horses, who direct him completely via existence whereas all while reminding him of the bigger, increased unoriginal strengths that have an effect on each person. Horses Cite in All the Beautiful Horses

Various of the activities in All the Pretty Horses can be interpreted by means of a Christian dedicated point of convergence. For delineation, when John Grady, Rawlins, and Blevins go the Rio Grande in Chapter 1—stripped and about submerged—their water crossing addresses a purification into their lowering side lives. John Grady’s struggling in jail is Christlike when you think about that he is keen to miss on (and truely channel) out of his esteem for Alejandra. The title of the Rocha family ranch, Hacienda de Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción (in English, ‘Our Woman of Unadulterated Conception’), is greater than life like a tribute to the Virgin Mary and an outline of the essentialness of the Catholic believe in Mexican culture. Or on the extraordinary hand, perhaps, it symbolizes the charming situation of women in Mexico and inner the Christian world. For a duration it may additionally prefer to be a competition of Alejandra. She is an unadulterated vigorous virgin like Mary in the past than her yet after her affiliation with John Grady, she is currently now no longer viewed interior a similar light. Her drop from tastefulness is taken so absolutely that it propels her dad

Jimmy Blevins, one of the main characters in All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, has some questionable attributes that make him a little less than admirable. Blevins is a very sensitive thirteen-year-old boy who runs away to Mexico due to an abusive parent. Because he is so immature and sensitive, he worsens the situations that he finds himself in. While in this foreign country, he is met with many unfortunate circumstances. While dealing with each unfortunate event, his impulsivity becomes very clear. Due to these two traits, he worsens his living situation. Blevins does, however, have a positive trait of caring deeply for John Grady and Rawlins.

Blevins’ sensitivity coincides with his immaturity, meaning both traits cause his life to get harder. Due to his irrational fear of lightning, Blevins’ horse ends up “running somewhere out in the rain” (McCarthy 71). Blevins’ horse wasn’t tied up properly during the storm making it very easy for the horse to run off. Once the storm passes, John tells Blevins that his horse is gone, and instead of planning his next move, Blevins asks the boys for help. His childish behavior causes him to be much more reliant on John, which drags the boys down. Now he relies on both John and Rawlins for food, protection, and transportation. Once the boys are eating with the Mexican family, Blevins’ sensitivity and childish nature become much more clear. While Blevins is eating dinner, he falls out of his chair onto the ground. When Rawlins and the two girls sitting at the table with him begin to laugh. Blevins storms out of the house saying “he don’t like to be laughed at” (53). Instead of coming back inside, he excuses himself and sleeps outside. This childish behavior continues throughout the novel. Later in their travels, the boys come across a group of men who feed them and give them a place to stay for the night. While talking to the group, a man “asked John Grady if he wished to sell the boy” (76). Grady kindly rejects the offer and starts to pack his belongings. He tells Blevins and Rawlins to do the same. Grady takes some time to contemplate whether or not he wants to tell Blevins about the ordeal. John specifically waits until the boys are pretty far away from the camp to tell Blevins due to his childish nature. He knows that because Blevins is too immature to handle the news, he shouldn’t say anything to Blevins until they’re long gone. Blevins could possibly start a scene and get the boys into serious trouble.

Blevins’ trait of impulsivity leads the boys down a road of unfortunate events. At the beginning of the novel, Blevins wants to prove himself to Rawlins. He wants to prove that anything Rawlins throws up in the air, he can hit with a bullet. Because of Blevins’ lack of impulse control, he doesn’t think of the consequences this action could have, so “he shot it” (48). At the time it seemed like harmless fun, but in reality, when Rawlins needs his identification card in prison, he doesn’t have a valid one because of the bullet hole. This leads to the faculty of the prison not believing Rawlins is who he says he is. Because of Blevins’ one impulsive action, Rawlins is now in a bad situation. After Blevins loses his horse in a thunderstorm, he finds the horse again in the group of men. Impulsively, Blevins steals his horse and gun back from the man who has it. This impulsive action leads to the boys having to split up because they are now being chased by the men in the group. Blevins can’t prove that the horse and pistol are his, therefore, it looks like he has stolen it. This causes the men to follow them while firing shots. The boys decide it’s best for them to split up, leaving Blevins all by himself in Mexico. After splitting up, Blevins is accused of killing three people, but he only admits to one. Due to a lack of impulse control, he stole his gun back from one of the men in the group. Blevins “walked up behind him and snatched it out of his belt” (159). Blevins proceeds to shoot the man for attempting to attack him and then shoots another man off of his horse. Because Blevins is impulsive, he causes a lot of problems for the boys.

Blevins does possess a good trait of caring deeply for John and Rawlins. While he is being taken away by prison worker, “Blevins had wrenched one off one boot and was reaching down inside it. He pulled up the black and sweaty innersole and threw it away and reached in again…he thrust into [John’s] hand a wad of dirty and crumpled peso” (177). Blevins was supposedly shot in this scene, making this the last encounter John had with him. Blevins made sure that his friends were taken care of. It wasn’t much money, but it was all that Blevins had left. This action showed how much he truly cared for his friends. Once Blevins realizes that he’s messed up, he tries his best to fix it for his friends. After he realizes that his impulsive decision could get the boys killed, he decides to “take the road since it’s [him] they’re huntin” (84). This means that the boys are splitting up to keep John and Rawlins safe. Blevins knows that he can outrun any other horse. Blevins also uses his survival skills to keep the boys alone. Before deciding to split the group up, Blevins uses his instincts to keep them safe. “He slid from his horse and lay in the road listening” (83). This survival tactic lets the boys know when the men were approaching so that they could get farther away. The last thing he wants is for his friends and himself to die.

Although Jimmy Blevins has caused problems for John Grady and Rawlins, he truly does care for them. His less positive attributes, however, make his character less than admirable.