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

Everyone has a different way to deal with overwhelming situations. It can be more difficult for people with mental illness to cope with the hardships of life. For instance, in “Horses of the Night,” the character of Chris has dissociative symptoms that can be linked to his depression. Margaret Laurence’s short story tells the story of Chris, a young teenager who moves to from a small farm to the town of Manawaka in order to go to high school. The story is told by his younger cousin, Vanessa. As she grows up, she learns that Chris is depressed. The author uses the theme of fantasy to show that he does not cope well with reality. The horses, Shallow Creek, and the children are symbols that show us the fantasy that Chris lives in.

In All the Pretty Horses, John Grady Cole’s finds himself in a time where the physical frontier no longer exists. The absence of his frontier/meaning drives his continuous search for this nonexistent frontier. Upon setting his eyes on his goal, the cowboy life, John Grady Cole immediately sets off on his journey. As John Grady says to Rawlins before setting off to search for the cowboy life, “What the hell reason you got for stay in?... I 'm already gone” (McCarthy 27). John Grady immediately sets of on his search for life on the no longer existing frontier. He feels an innate urge as a frontiersman to go towards his frontier. As a frontiersman, he isn’t afraid to leave everything behind as he sets forwards on his journey. His frontier calls out from him a drive to search. However, by the end of the book, John Grady recognizes that the frontier he was looking for no longer exists. However, distraught and left empty, John Grady says to Rawlins "it aint my country," and that he no longer knows where "his country" is (McCarthy 299). Then John Grady rides of into the sunset presumably to

The scene of the novel, All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy, was located in Mexico and Texas. The main character, John Grady Cole, overcomes many obstacles on his journey of discovery. This essay will explain how the two places differ, how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the book, and what each place represents.

Between leaving their home and arriving at the camp, the characters stay in horse stalls, implying that the characters are no better than livestock. Furthermore, horses appear as the characters are on the train, going to camp. The girl “pulled back the shade and looked out into the black Nevada night and saw a herd of wild of wild mustangs galloping across the desert” (45). The freedom of the wild horses conversely juxtaposes with how the characters are traveling to confinement. In addition, interactions between the boy and the girl reveal that horse meat is one of the staple foods in the camp. When the boy asks the girl where the meat comes from, she says that most of it comes from the wild mustangs being shot. The horses lose their freedom, much like the family lost

In his journey across the landscape of Mexico, John’s character in the novel begins to transform. He is beginning to move away from that boyish and naive kind of behavior and more towards the middle stage of between being a boy and a man; adolescence. McCarthy spends a great deal in describing John’s adolescent’s stage in this novel. Much of the time that McCarthy describes in this stage is when they are out on the prairie with the horses connecting with nature. This connection allows John to have and a clearer understanding that there is a divine line between men and horses and that you can’t apply the same characteristics that you would apply to a horse to a man.

In his essay, “Horse and Gentlemen,” T.H. Breen describes the cultural significance of gambling, specifically in relation to the quarter-horse races, in late 17th century Virginia. Breen primarily argues that the three main aspects of gambling – competitiveness, materialism, and individualism – reflected and reinforced the socio-economic structure of Virginia in this period. The high stakes wagers of the affluent planters reinforced their dominant status in the social structure and the gentry’s right to rule over this colony. Breen’s argument to this effect is supported by letters, court transcripts, documentation of wagers, and other written first-hand accounts. Breen’s case for the cultural significance of gambling has persuasive arguments for its representation of competitiveness and materialism. However, his argument for individualism has contrary elements and his essay would have been improved with the inclusion of women’s role in the gambling culture.

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

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.

Cormac McCarthy All the Pretty Horses depicts the American romanticized view of the west. John Grady, emerging from a dilapidated family ventures out on a journey in pursuit of his dream of the cowboy lifestyle. Through out the novel there is a constant tension between John Grady destiny or fate and the nature of his dreams. Dreams keep the dreamer from reality and because they are unreal, they paralyze the dreamer’s reality. Nonetheless, they motivate his journey through Mexico. The different roles that his dreams play depict the different characters that John Grady assumes: the Texas teenager, the lover, the prisoner and the man. John Grady’s

On the run, they split up, with John Grady and Rawlins finding refuge on a hacienda where few questions are asked and a talent for breaking horses is still a source of honor, and where they fall into a routine as familiar to them as the shape of their saddles.

Cattle has a reliable significance by being the personification of the Native American people. Although white ranchers rejected the animals, Josiah has his faith and intuition that his cattle would be unique, not the ordinary which have lost touch with their lands. He demonstrates the animals as “any living thing” (Silko, 74), which illustrates that the cattle would lose their origins if they “separate from the land for too long” (Silko, 74). Silko highlights the dissimilarity of treatment of animals by the whites from the Laguna method of hunting animals since the Laguna people expresses their respects and appreciations for the prey through rituals and ceremonies. When the Herefords owned by the white ranchers are about to fall to death because of thirst, the spotted cattle can find water on their own. In other words, they are self-sufficient and close to the lands

In Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, the concept of understanding sacrifice to establish a greater moral good is central to the main characters and their developed values. Specifically, McCarthy incorporates a great sacrifice of young love made by John Crady Cole’s love interest, Alejandra. Alejandra strategically surrenders her promising relationship with John Grady in order to accomplish a greater agenda: bailing him out of jail therefore, assuring the forbiddance of their of their future union. In this instance, the sacrifice of love and union reveals the character’s deeper values rooted in moral obligation. This passionate act of love exemplifies Alejandra’s strength and selflessness, while also displaying a deeper understanding to the overall meaning of the book by highlighting how valuable friendships and relationships come at a great cost.

John Grady is not your average cowboy. All the Pretty Horses is not your typical coming-of-age story. This is an honest tale. Cormac McCarthy follows John Grady as he embarks on his journey of self-discovery across the border. Armed with a few pesos in his pocket, a strong horse and a friend at his side, John Grady thinks he’s ready to take on the Wild West of Mexico. At their final steps in America, a stranger, aged thirteen, joins our heroes. This unexpected variable named Blevins challenges John Grady, testing his character and pushing him to uncomfortable limits. The dynamic of their relationship reveals John Grady’s capacity to care for others as he shelters this kid from the hardships of reality and the

The cattle kingdom out west had hit its peak in the 1880 's. A steer could be purchased in Texas for eight dollars. They could be sold in the east for up to sixty dollars. In the 1880 's the open range is coming to an end. The farmers are fed up with the cattle tromping through his crops. The sheepherders also took away from the cattle kingdom. The sheep killed the grass when they ate it, unlike cows. The farmer and cowboy hated each other, and they were

The father knows how much the horses means to his son, so giving him this job shows that he does not actually want to have to kill them. In addition, the father takes the time to ask his son about the horses when he finds his son out on the fence, “What makes them run like that?” (125). He even goes as far to ask if his son would like to own one. The narrator is hesitant to answer, not sure if it a trick question or not. He answers truthfully, saying yes that he would like to own one. It is at this moment that we first see the fathers caring side. The father is showing an interest in what matters to his son.