Search For Identity In Cormac Mccarthy's All The Pretty Horses

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

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

A man and his son travelling alone amidst the ruins of a previously prosperous nation; a young man venturing into a treacherous land to tie up the loose ends in his life; a broken ranch hand that suspects he had a conversation with death: in the most desolate and uncertain environments, the surrounding world can lend a bleak and lifeless perspective to one’s struggle to survive. In lands without accompaniment from other humans, the will to live can be as difficult to muster as shelter for the night or the first meal in days. Cormac McCarthy explores the difficulties of survival under the tension of barren landscapes and youthful inexperience and their effects on the loss of innocence. Gained maturity enables humans to persist and stay hopeful, even in the least hopeful situations. These environments and mindsets play an important role in the messages of three novels by Cormac McCarthy: The Road, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain.

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

Identities can be ripped away from people, but love can help people to regain it and realise who they truly are. In Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse the native children’s identities are taken from them, and not all of them find it again. Saul’s own identity as an Ojibway is taken by the residential school and the impact of unfavourable circumstances; but with the love and support of his family and friends, he finds it again. The residential school and other negative influences cause Saul to lose his identity, which is the offset for his quest to regain it with help from his friends and family.

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.

However, he soon discovers that Mexico is not the land of dreams he hoped it would be. Even John Grady’s relationship with Alejandra is one that is highly idealized and ultimately forced apart by reality. Being thrust into a world where love isn’t a matter of emotions or connection, rather a matter of social standing and wealth brings John Grady’s idealism crashing to the ground when Alfonsa forces the two young lovers apart for the sake of her niece. Although he knows the conditions under which Alfonsa has chosen to free the boys from jail John Grady still chooses to go back to the ranch in order to hear it from Alejandra herself. When Alfonsa intercedes and shares her story with him she says “I know your case. Your case is that certain things happened that you had no control over (McCarthy, pg. 240).” It seems that she anticipates that John Grady’s idealistic outlook will soon be diminished by the harsh reality of the world, just as hers were when she was a

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.

The use of McCarthy’s style of writing is written in a way that someone can detect the feelings of the character rather than the story of what happened. The purpose for narratives is to focused on the plot of the story but McCarthy wants the readers to really feel exactly what the characters feel so he in repetitive of how “Cold and Grey” (McCarthy 19) the world around them is Even when they are physically battle something like hunger, you can really feel that they were almost always “Out of food” (McCarthy 197).

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.

The first way that horses play a major role in developing a theme of the story is through their use as symbolism. Horses seem to represent all of nature throughout the story, as they are often the only natural entity that is vividly described. Even though John Grady is experienced with horses, there is still some wilderness about them that even he can’t understand. The idea that horses, or nature, are a lot more durable than humans will ever be is an idea that John Grady himself reinforces in some of his dreams. Early in the story in one of John’s dream he realizes that “the order in the horse's heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no rain could erase it" (McCarthy). This idea adds to the fact that horses seem to represent a lasting entity, a species that will continue to exist overtime. Continuing with the idea of horses as a use of symbolism, is

John Grady Cole, the last in a long line of west Texas ranchers, is, at sixteen, poised on the sorrowful, painful edge of manhood. When he realizes the only life he has ever known is disappearing into the past and that cowboys are as doomed as the Comanche who came before them, he leaves on a dangerous and harrowing journey into the beautiful and utterly foreign world that is Mexico. In the guise of a classic Western, All the Pretty Horses is at its heart a lyrical and elegiac coming-of-age story about love, friendship, and loyalty that will leave John Grady, and the reader, changed forever. When his mother decides to sell the cattle ranch he has grown up working, John Grady Cole and his friend Lacey Rawlins

The end of John Grady Cole’s life in Texas spurs a new life in Mexico. At the death of his grandfather’s life, all that John Grady has known is taken away from him. His mother’s decision to sell his grandfather’s property and his father’s willingness to let her do it puts John Grady in a place where he no longer knows where he stands. Accompanied by his best friend Lacey Rawlins, the two run off to Mexico to create a new life with the horses. The unexpected company of Jimmy Blevins turns their smooth journey into one that makes sixteen-year-old John Grady Cole into a man. Throughout All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy writes John’s coming of age transition, or Bildungsroman, as shown by the archetypes and blood motif and parallel structure.

The award winning film, No Country for Old Men, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s 2007 novel, is a riveting tale of a brutal chain of events related to money, murder, and drugs, which rolls through West Texas in the 1980’s. Told through the perspective of the stories three main characters – a soulless killer, an old time sheriff, and an experienced country boy – both the novel and the film keep the audience anxiously waiting for the next gun fight or brutal killing. Amazingly, the film’s adaptation, directed by brothers Ethan and Joel Coens, manages to capture the themes and overall essences of the novel by maintaining all distinguishing mannerisms and dispositions of the characters; while also keeping the