All The Pretty Horses by Cormac Mc Carthy - Research Paper Example

?Susan Turner Timo Koskinen English 104 April 19, All The Pretty Horses by Cormac Mc Carthy I. Summary All the Pretty Horses is a novel by Cormac McCarthy poignantly describing the coming of age of a lonely cowboy. It is about a young man named John Grady and his adventures and misdeeds as a cowboy. The setting is in 1949 when the story starts with a funeral. It was the funeral of Grady’s grandfather, the owner of the ranch that their family was living on. With his grandfather dead, Grady’s mother who is an actress, will have to sell the ranch. Realizing that there was nothing for him in Texas anymore since he loves the ranch and the lifestyle it provides, he leaves Texas for Mexico. He brought along his friend Rawlins with him. Together, they ride to Mexico as idealized cowboys on horseback. On the road, another character by the name of Blevins joins them. Blevins is thirteen years old and he rides a beautiful horse. Rawlins immediately dislikes him but they still continue the journey on together. They reach the Rio Grande and upon crossing the river reaches Mexico. In Mexico, they encounter a terrible storm. Blevins, being very fearful, strips all his clothes (as a precaution against lightning strikes), and runs off, leaving his horse and all of his belongings. The next day, they find him almost naked. Blevins convinces Grady and Rawlins to find a town and look for his horse and his gun, which were stolen during the height of his panic attack. Soon enough, on the village of Encantada, they find Blevins’ horse but then it was already claimed by someone else. Blevins takes it back and the locals pursue them. In the pursuit, they got separated. Grady and Rawlins eventually moves South where they were able to find jobs as cowboys in a ranch owned by a certain Don Hector. Because of his own experience in their own ranch, Grady soon became famous in Don Hector’s ranch as the new cowboy. He proves himself to be a very good one, as he deeply understands horses. Because of his expertise, he was put in charge of the breeding of the horses. Then, he meets Alejandra, Don Hector’s daughter and he falls for her. Although he was warned by Alejandra’s cynical aunt, Alfonsa, Grady pursues Alejandra and then they began an affair. When Don Hector found out about it, he had the Americans arrested by the corrupt Encantada police. There in Encantada jail cell, they reunite with Blevins again. They soon find that Blevins killed someone when he returned to Encantada to retrieve his stolen gun. Grady and Rawlins were now labeled as co-conspirators in Blevins’ case. Then, because he was tortured, Rawlins owns up to the accusations, and this leads to Blevins’ assassination. Grady and Rawlins remains imprisoned in the town called Saltillo. In prison they experience constant bullying by the prison mafia. It happens that a cuchillero attacks Grady as he refuses the invitation of Perez. Perez is a powerful prisoner who wants Grady to be his ally. John Grady eventually kills his assailant. He and Rawlins get badly wounded in the process. Alfonsa, Alejandra’s aunt, bribes the prison commander to release Grady and Rawlins and they were eventually released. Alfonsa made Grady swear that he should never see Alejandra again. With his newfound liberty, Rawlins goes back to America. Grady, however, was so intent to see and go back to Alejandra. Alfonsa again warns Grady not to pursue Alejandra and sets out a long discussion about the pitfalls of romance and its foolishness. In spite of all the discouragement, he meets Alejandra and they spend the whole day together. Grady proposes marriage to Alejandra but Alejandra declines because she already decided that she couldn’t leave her family, thus leaving Grady with a broken heart. Grady decides to go back to America but not without his horses. So he goes back to the village of Encantada and reclaims the horses, all the while claiming the captain of the town as hostage. The people pursue him but eventually crosses the border heavily wounded. He finds himself back in Texas where he discovers that his father is already dead. His friend Rawlins is suddenly cold and aloof like a stranger. With all of these happenings, the novel ends with Grady riding west into the sunset. II. Theme Analysis A. Main Theme The novel is about a young man who is coming of age. This is a story of a young man of sixteen trying to find out the harsh realities of the world and realizing that life as he has romantically envisioned it, is indeed far from reality (Arnold & Luce, 1999). The main theme in the novel is the end of innocence. The book actually deals with loss of all kinds, but mainly the loss innocence (Tompkins, 1992). The book opens with a funeral, which is the end of a life, and also, the end of security for the Grady family. These “ends” go on when Grady pursues a journey to Mexico, through the sunset (end of the day) with his friend, whom he ultimately lost at the end. For every “end” there is a beginning. His journey to Mexico was, at first, his attempt to live the ideal cowboy’s life. His own cowboy lifestyle ends with his grandfather’s death as his mother is about to sell their ranch. But this is the beginning of his own adventure of living on the dream of fulfilling the cowboy code. However, he soon finds out that his imaginings of the ideal cowboy life was far from the reality of the real cowboy’s life. His experiences on the road and on the ranch of Don Hector illustrates this. Throughout the journey, we see that experienced death, love and violence and all of these events make him grow up to be a man. In the beginning of the novel, he was only a sheltered boy of sixteen. At some point of the novel, he recognizes that his experiences have taught him valuable lessons and those lessons made him what he is. I quote: “It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they’d have no heart to start at all (McCarthy, 1993)”. This theme of growing up is a test on the romantic idea of the cowboy. The cowboy is a hero. This is the dream of our hero, Grady. The realities, he learned, are far from it. He was denied of justice, he was denied of love, he was even denied of his dream. The romantic lifestyle of the hero that he sought practically failed him and made him lose everything that he had: his family (his father especially, even if his parents were separating), his security (he was in a foreign country after all), his love (he had an ex-lover in Texas), his friend (Rawlins was “a different man” when he got back) and even his country “Where is your country? he said. I don’t know, said John Grady. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know what happens to country.” (McCarthy, 299). But what saves the hero is that the fact that his experiences did not make him disillusioned, even if it made him lose his innocence. He his still a hero at the end of the day, (literally, as the end of the novel pictures him riding into the sunset) and his character underwent a good run: at first, he was an empty character, seeking meaning to the world, but now with all the experiences, he is now a better, wiser cowboy (Arnold & Luce, 1999). For me, that is the author’s vision: to help the main character grow out to become a man first, and then return home as a man, then get to the world as a man and a hero. B. Minor Theme Another theme in the novel is the challenges of being the hero. This is related to the major theme in a sense that being a hero is difficult amidst all the challenges and negativity. This is also in relation to the quote It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young” because it leaves the “hero” disillusioned. The hero often fights evil, and as this is a romantic novel, it is expected that the hero should. Grady, as a hero, fights for his life, fights for his limitations, fights for his friends and fights for his love. He did not win all these fights but he did try, making him a good hero. However, he sees that whatever his efforts are, some things are still not meant to be, making him a tragic hero. He is a good, but tragic hero (Woodward). III. Motifs One of the most important motifs in this novel is blood. It is also an important symbol in the novel. It is recurring. Blood is violence, and blood is usually the price for everything that Grady loves: his life, Alejandra and the horses. It is also interesting to note that blood, especially for Roman Catholics, is for transformation, as the red wine is transformed to the blood of Christ which is something holy. Blood in this novel, acts is the same way too. Blood, or violence, in this case is the ultimate tool for him to change from boy to man. He learned how to accept and get defeated, as well as to fight back (Tompkins, 1992). His love for Alejandra made him lose his liberty, and gotten himself in sticky situations in the jail with an assassin. This is also the part where we see him struggling for his life. He fought for his life when he was saving the horses, getting severely injured. All of this relates to violence, and it is useful to note that the author said “here's no such thing as life without bloodshed” (Woodward), which is also the main point of blood as a symbol in this novel. IV. Conflict The conflict is generally Man vs. Society. This is a coming of age story and what he undergoes is simply a manner of finding truth, and unfortunately, finding these truths also means challenging the rules and norms that were set by the society (Tompkins, 1992). Like, in the case of his love for Alejandra: he cannot have her because he was poor and she was rich. Or in the case of being with Blevins: he was a victim of prejudice just because he was his friend. His struggle for his own life, and also his friends’ lives is like fighting against society! However, we see not a rebel, but only a man finding for answers, thereby pushing the envelope as he goes on along with his life. This was resolved when he got back home to Texas but he found himself alone, without friends and family. The safety of his world was not enough for him, as this does not provide him the challenge. The conflict is resolved, however, he chooses to leave the conflict-less, challenge-free world of Texas and goes on again. This suggests that life is indeed full of conflicts, whatever it may be. Life is unreal without it, and we constantly, consciously or not, look for it as it is a necessity for living (Tompkins, 1992). V. Style The use of violence as a formative element in the story is really a trademark of the author. It is also worthy to note that this is the first book of McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, which is all about the cowboy life, or the relations in it. McCarthy often writes in bleak terms and themes but this book is all about the romanticism of being a cowboy and a hero and this is all evident in the two other Border Trilogy books (Woodward). McCarthy is a master stylist when it comes to literature. He is actually touted as one of the greatest American writers in the 21st Century, being an “heir” to Hemingway and Faulkner (Hemingway, 1969 ). However, for this book, he chose the style which is similar to Hemingway’s, which is omitting some punctuation, particularly the quotation marks when it came to the speaking parts. It is a conscious effort on the author’s part because there is this implication that words simply cannot express some things correctly, as in “The truth is what happened. It isn’t what comes out of somebody's mouth.” (McCarthy 168). It is quite paradoxical since a novel “should” express these certain emotions through words. Yet, as a reader, we understand everything that happens in the minds of the characters perfectly. The novel is rife with silences and implications and true enough there are just moments in life where silence is better compared to blunt confrontations. These silences also symbolize Grady’s character of being stoic, preferring actions to speak, and not words, thinking that this is a more honest way of living (Arnold & Luce, 1999). Contrast him to eloquent characters like Alfonsa, Don Hector and Perez: they are basically the antagonists of the novel, implying that talk, basically is not a trustworthy medium of conveying the right things. VI. Gender Approach As a cowboy novel, this novel is different. Cowboy novels usually disregard women characters. True, there are no women main characters in the novel but strangely enough, Grady’s fate is dictated by women. First, his decision to go to Mexico was influenced by his mother’s decision to sell the ranch, as well as preventing him to run it. Alejandra was the reason that he and Rawlins was in jail because she confessed to her father, thus, signing up for his arrest. Alfonsa buys his freedom from jail, but in turn, ends his possible future relationship with Alejandra. Indeed, the violence that is in the novel is participated by the male characters, but then, without the women, these violent scenes would never had happened, making women superior in stature in this cowboy novel compared to other cowboy novels (Arnold & Luce, 1999). Bibliography Arnold, E., & Luce, D. (1999). Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy. . Jackson:: University Press of Mississippi. Hemingway, E. (1969 ). A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. McCarthy, C. (1993). All The Pretty Horses. New York: Vintage. Tompkins, J. (1992). West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns. . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woodward, R. (n.d.). Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction. Retrieved Aprill 1, 2011, from www.nytimes.com: http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/19/magazine/cormac-mccarthy-s-venomous-fiction.html Read More