Blood in Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses Essay

In Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses, John Grady Cole's departure of America and search for identity leads him on a tortuous journey. Sprouting in San Angelo, Texas, John Grady Cole blossoms into life on a ranch his grandfather presides over. His grandfather dies when he is just sixteen, causing him to depart America - the country he once called home - with his best friend Lacey Rawlins for Mexico, to be cowboys. As he explores the southern country, he feels that Mexico is exactly where he belongs. But, during his visit, he runs into trouble as he falls in love with a ranch owner's daughter who comes from a strictly traditional family, he is jettisoned in a moral-absent jail, and he stabs a man to death. Because Cole has nowhere else

The word blood is not used in the novel until a few chapters in, but is a major motif. Blood symbolizes life in Dracula, because in every situation characters seem to be struggling without it. The Count is always craving it while some of the characters are constantly lacking it. As the readers all know Count is a vampire, but the characters are clueless throughout the beginning of the book, when poor Lucy is suffering. As Harker is a prisoner in Dracula’s castle, Dracula makes sure that it is clear to Harker that blood is something everyone should cherish. Harker thinks he is going crazy because of the weird sights, smells, and fears he has encountered while staying with the Count. Although he thinks he is becoming crazy everything that he think is unrealistically happening is actually happening.

In All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy tells the tale of John Grady Cole’s quest to capture the ideal qualities of a cowboy as he sees them: laid-back, unfettered, nomadic and carefree attitudes. These qualities soon clash, however, with the reality of darkness, suffering and mystery that seems to follow him. Reality constantly subverts his ideal dream. Time and time again, John Grady Cole works to be this fantasy, but through reality’s constant rejection of his fantasy, he lives the dream.

In his play Where the Blood Mixes, Kevin Loring casts light on the rippling effects of the trauma caused by residential schools on generations of Indigenous peoples in the twenty first century. Loring's play, which is set in the twenty first century, illuminates the present-day legacy of residential schools and residential school survivors. Loring strives not to minimize the experiences of residential school survivors, but to reconstruct how residential school survivors are viewed and represented. Loring achieves this task through his depiction of characters that are sad but loving and funny people with hobbies, people who are not consumed with and defined by their residential school experiences but continue to feel its painful

            The third, and most often use of the symbol blood, is in reference to the theme of guilt.  This use was hinted at earlier when Lady Macbeth made sure that no blood was found on either her or Macbeth. Macbeth hints at his guilt and his wish to be absolved from sin when he says, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand"(II.ii.78)?   Once again, blood is used as a

In a journey across the vast untamed country of Mexico, Cormac McCarthy introduces All the Pretty Horses, a bittersweet and profoundly moving tale of love, hate, disappointments, joy, and redemption. John Grady sets out on horseback to Mexico with his best friend Lacey Rawlins in search of the cowboy lifestyle. His journey leaves John wiser but saddened, yet out of this heartbreak comes the resilience of a man who has claimed his place in the world as a true cowboy. In his journey John’s character changes and develops throughout the novel to have more of a personal relationship with the horses and Mother Nature. He changes from a young boy who knows nothing of the world

the plot.The recurring imagery of blood is used as a symbol to demonstrate the constant feelings of guilt. The blood imagery impacted the play and the characters into making decisions. Without the bloody imagery, the story line would not have went the way it did which is is characterized by not only guilt but also by all the deaths and which was present during the play.

     Despite the use of blood as a good connotation, Shakespeare uses blood to describe other connotations. In many instances, blood is what haunts Macbeth before and after the murder. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/ Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red” (II.ii.78-81). No matter if it is a little water or a whole ocean of water, Macbeth feels that no amount of water will clean the blood off his hands. Blood used in this context is sinful and evil. With guilt, he knows that what he has done will never be undone like the blood on his hands. When hallucinating the dagger, Macbeth sees that the blade has “gouts of blood, / Which was not so before. There’s no such thing. / It is the bloody business which informs / Thus to mine eyes” (II.ii.58-61). The imagery of blood on a sharp knife brings evil connotations and foreshadows the violence and goriness that is anticipated. Macbeth refers to the

Blood plays a significant role in this play and there is a lot of blood being shed, giving us a sense of horror and guilt.

Blood is essential to every human beings survival. It is a fluid circulating throughout the body that carries nutrients and oxygen to the tissues in exchange for life and if this was somehow lost then the life would also be lost. It represents life, death, and injury. It is an essential part of life. Without it, we would not live. As a symbol and major theme in Macbeth, Blood is used most often to represent injury and death, but also life. In Macbeth, he uses blood to represents impurity. Shakespeare often accompanies the image of water with the image of blood. The water represents cleansing and purity.

At this point in the play, the image of blood is undoubtedly becoming more intense as Macbeth is beginning to expedite the prophecy of the witches (I.iii.50-53). Originally, blood referred to murder, and

One of the first references to blood represents a feeling of honour, and bravery. It is in Act I scene 2 line 1. Duncan says, “What bloody man is that?” when he sees the injured sergeant. Then, from lines 9-33 (The Merciless Macdonwald, etc…) the sergeant tells the story of Macbeth’s heroic victories over Macdonwald and the King of Norway. The telling of this story is, in itself, heroic. It is symbolic of the brave fighter who

First, blood is a reference of honor, and this occurs when Duncan sees the injured sergeant and says, "What bloody man is that?"(1.2.1). This is symbolic of the brave fighter who been injured in a valiant battle for Scotland. The sergeant

blood [and] cut off the race just dashing into life!" (107) He is a bloody

Blood reveals Macbeth’s feelings about murder. For example, blood symbolism exposes the apprehensiveness of Macbeth before he kills Duncan . Macbeth hallucinates a dagger floating before him, guiding him towards