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Explanation of a Scene from All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

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The specific explanation of a scene can change depending on who sees it and how they choose to interpret it. The scene of the book that I have chosen is on page 99-102. The scene is when the Vaqueros bring in wild colts from the mesa stuck out to me. The scene shows John Grady’s knowledge and care of horses and shows the common misconceptions of a horse by Rawlings. The scene also shows the level of confidence that John Grady has in his own ability with horses and the trust that Rawlins has in him when it comes to break the horses in only four days. As the owner of the ranch gave the permission to try, while still say in not so nice a way they had no chance, you can assume he had faith in them. As the scene commences Rawlins and Grady…show more content…
The main thing that stuck out for me about this scene is the fact that John Grady set himself a challenge, to break all sixteen horses in only four days with just the two of them. This for anyone would be like saying I’m going to climb that wall with a stick of gum, or some equally impossible circumstance. While Rawlins is skeptical, not at his friends ability but at the quality of the job that they could do, he is all for the chance to try. While the entire process did wear the two of them out it seemed to have worked since in the whole book there were no complaints about the quality of the job they had done. The challenge became somewhat of a spectator sport for the people on the ranch and the nearby area, as shown on pages 105-107, with picnics, a fire, and musical instruments. The owner of the ranch was running out of horses for his workers to ride, as a result he sent them to bring in wild horses which were brought in around the time Grady and Rawlings were working there. The owner had a house in Mexico City where his wife lived with their daughter lived, most of the time. He was even wealthy enough to own his plane for travel back and forth. Keeping all this in mind I imagine that he didn’t respect the value of a dollar so when two of his ranch hands say they could break all of his wild horses alone, in four days no less, he would have almost nothing to lose. Still this kind of challenge is unlikely to work, so you would need to have a great deal of faith in
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