All the Pretty Horses

Context

The first American colonials, the Puritans, envisioned the vast unexplored reaches of land tothe west of the colonies as a "desert wilderness," where danger lurked most obviously in theform of hostile Native Americans. At the same time, however, the Puritans also thought of theAmerican continent as somehow sacred, a new promised land. As white Americans began toexplore westward, these two attitudes remained at the forefront of the American imagination.Ideas of the American West have become an important part of our literature and mythology;they are pervasive in the American mind. For as long as white Americans have lived on thiscontinent, they have regarded the unsettled West with a mixture of fear and excitement. It hasbeen seen as a place of possibility but also of peril: a proving ground.

It is obvious, of course, that the history of the exploration and settlement of the country west ofthe original colonies--with its attendant violence and savagery towards the Native Americanswho already lived there--is the history of the United States. Even the original colonies, as anunknown and uncivilized frontier for the European colonists, were an expression of Westernexpansion. The great moments in the history of the West are the great moments in Americanhistory: the Louisiana Purchase of western lands in 1803; the Lewis and Clark overlandexpedition to the Pacific Northwest from 1804-1806; the mapmaking and explorations of JohnC. Fremont in the late 1830s and 1840s; and the 1849 gold rush that brought Americanswestward in unprecedented numbers. The gold rush, especially, solidified in the Americanmind an image of the West as a place of vast possibility. And other facets were being added tothe vision: the West was a place, far away from civilization, of violence and lawlessness; aplace relatively devoid of women and children, dominated by the men who explored and settledit first, governed by their codes of strength and toughness; a place of lonely and awesomebeauty. The West was, as the literary critic Jane Tompkins has written, "a symbol of freedom,and of the opportunity for conquest."

While the boundaries of any geographical area that might be known as the "West" havechanged dramatically (for the Puritans, Western Massachusetts was quite far enough West), thepopular imagination began to delineate areas that represented the ideas they associated with theWest. This was--again, in Tompkins' words--"the West of the desert, of mountains andprairies." The West was the area in which cowboys roamed along the great cattle trails. ThisWest certainly existed. And the idea of the West as a breeding ground for American traits ofindividualism and risk-taking, as a place of possibility where a poor man might become rich, issurely an idea authenticated by history. But it must be said that the West as it is popularlyimagined--of cowboys and Indians, of "big-sky" country--was to a great extent a product of anindustry and a genre that has defined American culture in the past century: the Western.

Movies set within the Western experience comprise a significant percentage of Americanfilms. Everyone has seen these movies, and recognizes their brave but antisocial heroes, theirlawless villains, the sweep of violins while a horse rides off into a sunset. For a generation ofAmericans, the cowboys they saw in the movies became symbols of American masculinity. TheWestern novel, too, has been a popular form since the first nineteenth-century dime-store

pamphlets described, in terms so melodramatic and exaggerated as to be formulaic, the exploitsof the great heroes of the West. In the twentieth century, immensely popular novelists like ZaneGrey and Louis L'Amour have maintained the tradition of the Western novel (and in a muchbetter written form).

The end of the twentieth century saw a revision of popular attitudes about the West, as scholarsin many disciplines began to question previously accepted assumptions about America'shistorical and cultural heritage. New attention, for instance, was given to the appallingtreatment of Native Americans during the Western expansion, and how this treatment wasreflected in the Western movies that either vilified or trivialized the Native Americancharacters. Where in earlier generations the gunfighting past of the American West wasglorified--a symbol of American traditions of individualism and roughshod justice--many atthe end of the twentieth century began to ask questions about the harmful impact of thatviolence to our culture and to the men who used violence to justify their moral codes. It istelling that the best American western of the 1990s was Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" (1993),an anti-Western, a story about the human casualties and psychological scarring of gunfights.And it is telling that the great writer of Western novels at the end of the twentieth century andinto the twenty-first is Cormac McCarthy.

Indeed, McCarthy is most probably the greatest writer of Western novels in American history,to such a degree that his novels also transcend the "Western" genre. He may write in thetradition of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour, but he is certainly also an heir to America'stowering literary geniuses, such as William Faulkner--from whom McCarthy learned his long,flowing sentences--and Ernest Hemingway, whose attitudes of heroic stoicism and quietromanticism pervade McCarthy's prose.

McCarthy's great epic Border Trilogy --whose first novel, All the Pretty Horses, has becomeMcCarthy's most famous--tells the story of cowboys in the middle of the twentieth century,men who pursue a romantic Western idea that has vanished and turned from history into myth.McCarthy writes about the dark and unseen side of the Western idea: you will read inMcCarthy's novels what you will never see in most Western movies, stories about tragedy,cruelty, and blood without a heroic or redemptive ending. The irony of All the Pretty Horses isthat it exposes characters desperately trying to inhabit the cowboy myth--to subscribe to thecowboy code of stoicism, understated nobility and great physical skill--in the realities ofexploration in a savage and uncivilized land. What emerges is a picture of what the West mightreally have been, together with a picture of the human spirit under awesome moral pressure.

Summary

All the Pretty Horses begins with the 1949 funeral of John Grady Cole's grandfather. With hisdeath, John Grady's mother will sell their Texas ranch and move away. There is nothing left inTexas for John Grady, who loves the ranch and idealizes the cowboy's way of life. Only sixteenyears old, John Grady runs away from home with his friend Rawlins. On horseback, they headtoward the Mexican border, leading the idyllic, storybook life of migrant cowboys. They arejoined by a younger boy, the sensitive and stubborn Jimmy Blevins. Together, the three crossover the Rio Grande into Mexico.

Soon after they enter Mexico, the companions ride into a lightning storm. Blevins, who isterrified of lightening, strips off his clothes, abandons his horse, and hides in a ditch. The nextday finds him nearly naked, his horse and gun stolen. In the village of Encantada, thecompanions see Blevins' lost horse, but it has been claimed by someone else. In the aftermathof their attempt to steal the horse back, Rawlins and Cole become separated from Blevins. Theyescape from the posse pursuing them, however, and continue to travel south, where they findwork as cowboys on the vast ranch owned by Don Hector.

John Grady quickly proves himself a remarkable cowboy with an intuitive understanding ofhorses. Don Hector, impressed, puts him in charge of breeding the ranch's horses. But JohnGrady's good fortune is imperiled by his infatuation with Don Hector's beautiful daughter,Alejandra. Although John Grady is warned off by Alfonsa, Alejandra's cynical andmanipulative great-aunt, he nevertheless falls in love with the girl, and they begin an illicitaffair. When Don Hector finds out about it, he turns John Grady and Rawlins over to thethuggish, corrupt police captain of Encantada. Blevins, it seems, returned to Encantada toreclaim his gun and killed at least one of the townspeople. Now he is being held in jail, andJohn Grady and Rawlins are accused of being his co- conspirators. Rawlins is tortured until hegives a false confession.

Blevins is executed, but John Grady and Rawlins are merely imprisoned in the town of Saltillo.In the prison the Americans are marked as victims, and forced to fight constantly to survive.When they refuse to ally themselves with the wealthy, influential prisoner Perez, he sendsassassins after them both. Both men survive the attacks--with John Grady killing his assailant--but they are badly wounded, and end up in the hospital's infirmary. Only partially recovered,they are suddenly released by the prison commander, who has been bribed by Alfonsa atAlejandra's request.

Although Rawlins returns to Texas, John Grady is intent on reuniting with Alejandra. He goesback to the ranch, where Alfonsa meets with him, delivering a long discourse about humanpowerlessness and about the foolishness of romantic dreams. Nevertheless, he meets withAlejandra and they spend a short day together, but in the end she decides that she cannotabandon her family for him.

John Grady, shattered, refuses to leave Mexico without his horses. He goes back to Encantadaand, taking the captain as a hostage, reclaims the American horses. He is pursued on the wayback and wounded severely, but manages to evade the pursuit and cross back into Texas. He

finds that he no longer has a home: his father is dead, the ranch sold, and his friend Rawlinsseems like a stranger. The novel ends with John Grady riding west, into the setting sun.

Characters

John Grady Cole - A sixteen-year-old man; the central figure in All the Pretty Horses. Weknow almost nothing about Cole's physical appearance, only that by the end of the novel he isbadly scarred across the face and chest. Laconic and pensive, he seems prematurely aged. Helives his life according to a strict, almost ritualistic code, valuing honor, intelligence,responsibility, justice, loyalty, and skill. Above all other things, he loves horses, with which heis preternaturally gifted, and the cowboy life, the solitude and dignity of the West. The novelfollows Cole's journey as he flees the Texas ranch on which he grew up and travels with hiscompanions Rawlins and Blevins south into Mexico; on a psychological level, it depicts whathappens to Cole's romantic vision of the West.Lacey Rawlins - Lacey Rawlins is John Grady Cole's best friend and his companion on thetrip into Mexico. We know little about Rawlins physically, just that at age seventeen he is talland thin, with long arms. Rawlins is louder, more impatient and less introspective than Cole; heis also the less intelligent and less skilled member of the partnership. While he is faithful toCole, he does not subscribe to Cole's code of absolute loyalty and strictly moral action, and helacks the iron will that drives Cole to tirelessly pursue his romantic dreams. Rawlins and Colestick together until their ordeal in the Mexican jail: afterwards, Rawlins returns to Texas.Jimmy Blevins - A thirteen-year-old runaway who follows John Grady Cole and Rawlins toMexico. His real name, which is not Blevins, is never revealed. He is hypersensitive tomockery and insult, anything impinging on his dignity. This sensitivity led him to run awayfrom his abusive stepfather, and it also leads to his death: he returns to reclaim his stolen horseand gun, and is captured and eventually executed by the cruel captain.Alejandra - The daughter of Don Hector, the owner of the Mexican ranch on which JohnGrady Cole and Rawlins find work. She is quite beautiful: dark- haired, blue-eyed, pale andthin. There is always an attitude of sorrow about her, of tragedy waiting to happen. Alejandraand Cole fall in love and start an illicit affair. The discovery of the affair results in Don Hectorturning Cole in to the Mexican police. When Cole returns from jail he spends one morepassionate, tragic day with Alejandra: but she cannot bring herself to abandon her family andfollow him to America. She has been manipulated by her cynical great-aunt, Alfonsa.Don Hector - Don Hector Rocha y Villareal is the owner of the hacienda, or ranch, whereJohn Grady Cole and Rawlins find work. Don Hector, a member of the Mexican aristocracy, isintelligent and cultured, seeming both practical and kind. He is impressed by Cole, andpromotes him to the position of breeder. But when he discovers that Cole has been having anillicit affair with his daughter Alejandra, Don Hector is unforgiving, turning the Americansover to the lawless Mexican police. It is for fear of losing Don Hector's love--as well as for fearof her scheming great-aunt Alfonsa's manipulative power- -that Alejandra abandons Cole.Alfonsa - Alfonsa is Alejandra's grandaunt. She lives at the ranch of her nephew, Don Hector.An intelligent and intuitive student of human nature, Alfonsa had an aristocratic upbringing anda cosmopolitan, European education. In her youth she was what she calls a "freethinker," alliedwith the forces that would bring about the Mexican civil war on behalf of the oppressed andpoverty-stricken working class. She fell in love with one of the revolutionary leaders, but wasprevented from marrying him by her disapproving family. Her personal sorrows, instead ofmaking her more sensitive, have made her cynical and manipulative. It is she who pays thebribe to get Cole and Rawlins out of jail, but at the price of making Alejandra swear never to

see Cole again.Antonio - Antonio is a cowboy who works on Don Hector's ranch with John Grady Cole. He isthe brother of the ranch's foreman, Armondo. More than any of the other Mexicans, he becomesCole's friend, working with Cole to breed the horses and giving him counsel and help in Cole'spursuit of Alejandra both before and after Cole's imprisonment.The Captain - The captain--whose name, Raul, is almost never used-- is the sadistic, corruptlawman in the town of Encantada. The captain is the man who wrongly accuses Cole andRawlins of being outlaws, and tortures Rawlins to confess to crimes he did not commit. Later,after accepting a bribe from the charro, a relative of the man Blevins killed, the captainmurders Blevins. When Cole returns after being released from prison, he takes the captain ashis hostage. The captain exemplifies the corruption and cruelty rampant in this lawless part ofMexico.John Grady Cole's father - We never learn the name of John Grady Cole's father. At thebeginning of the novel, Cole's father is dying, possibly of lung cancer (although we never findout for certain). The father was a prisoner of war during World War II, and came back from it achanged man; afterward, he and John Grady's mother--a flighty, promiscuous women who ranoff to become an actress--were never reunited. He is a lonely, silent man.John Grady Cole's mother - John Grady Cole's nameless mother appears only in the openingpages of the novel, and only briefly. John Grady's mother has divorced John Grady's father;their marriage was never strong, and for a while during his infancy and early childhood, JohnGrady's mother left him to be raised by Louisa. At the time the narrative begins, John Grady'smother is only thirty-six years old, and wants to start another life away from the solitude of theranch, which has become lonely and unprofitable. She and her son are virtual strangers.Perez - The wealthy and powerful prisoner who tries to force John Grady and Rawlins to allythemselves with him or pay him bribes to arrange for their freedom. When the Americansrefuse, he has Rawlins stabbed, and--presumably, although we are never told for certain--paysan assassin to try to kill John Grady.The charro - A citizen of Encantada. Like the captain, the charro is only referred to by histitle, not by his name, Luis. He pays the captain a bribe to execute Blevins, who killed a relativeof his. When John Grady Cole returns to Encantada, he forces the charro to show him where hehas hidden the American horses.Armondo - The foreman on Don Hector's ranch.Maria - The kind, quiet cook at Don Hector's ranch. Though she never says so explicitly, sheseems deeply sympathetic toward John Grady Cole.Louisa - Louisa is the cook at the Grady ranch where John Grady Cole grew up. She raisedCole when his mother ran away and went to California.

Chapter I - Part 1

Note: All the Pretty Horses is divided into four long chapters. For ease of organization, thisSparkNote will divide both the first and last of these sections into two thematically coherentparts. The section of the SparkNote that deals with John Grady Cole before his departure forMexico is labeled "Chapter I - Part 1"; the section that deals with John Grady after his arrival inMexico and until the end of Chapter I, when John Grady is hired as a cowboy, is "Chapter I -Part 2". Similarly, "Chapter IV - Part 1" deals with Chapter IV from the chapter's beginninguntil John Grady's final split with Alejandra; "Chapter IV - Part 2" concerns itself with the endof the novel, from the split with Alejandra onward. Note that the novel itself does not subdividethese two chapters in this manner.

Summary

All the Pretty Horses opens with the funeral of John Grady Cole's grandfather, in the lateautumn of 1949. John Grady is a sixteen-year-old who has lived his whole life on hisgrandfather's ranch outside of San Angelo, Texas. With his grandfather's death, John Grady'smother will sell the unprofitable ranch: the boy feels, inescapably, that he is witnessing thefinal act of a drama that has been ongoing since his great-grandfather built a one-room hovel onthe site in 1866. This first section of the novel, leading up to John Grady's departure forMexico, consists of a group of connected scenes--conversations with friends and parents--thatlead to John Grady's conclusion that there is nothing left for him in San Angelo.

John Grady's parents are estranged. His mother, who at thirty-six is still young and longs for alife of excitement and romance away from the isolation of the ranch, is trying to build an actingcareer; she no longer speaks to his father, a professional gambler who was deeply scarredpsychologically by his experiences as a prisoner of war during World War II. Although it is notmade explicit, it also seems that John Grady's father is dying of lung cancer. After hisgrandfather's funeral, John Grady meets with his father at a cafe in San Angelo. The two aresilent and awkward, not knowing what to say to each other; the father feels that he has failedhis son.

John Grady sits at dinner with his mother, and asks her--in what seems to be an oft-repeatedconversation--to let him run the ranch. She denies the request, repeating her intention to sell it.In response, John Grady goes to visit Franklin, the family's lawyer, who tells him that there isnothing he can do to prevent the sale; he learns from Franklin, too, that his parents havebecome officially divorced. After some passage of time, we see John Grady taking a trip fromSan Angelo to San Antonio to see the play in which his mother is acting. He is out of place inthe relatively cosmopolitan city, and his trip only confirms that he and his mother are separatedby a vast distance.

John Grady sees his father for the last time in the spring of 1950; they go riding together in thecountryside around San Angelo. It is another episode in the string of John Grady's difficult andchoked goodbyes. We see him outside in the dark with his friend Rawlins, and learn that theyare planning to run away from Texas. We see him in downtown San Angelo, talking with MaryCatherine Barnett, a girl whom he used to date but who broke up with him. Finally, we see him

standing one night outside Rawlins' house. The two friends slip quietly away, and ride out ontothe prairie, away from home and toward their adventure.

Commentary

All the Pretty Horses both begins and ends with a funeral: first, the funeral of John GradyCole's grandfather, and at the end of the novel the funeral of the woman we know only as"Abuela" ("grandmother" in Spanish), the old Mexican woman--Louisa's mother--who lived onthe ranch since the turn of the century, and who helped raise John Grady. This is appropriate,since All the Pretty Horses is a novel about endings--about the closing of America's greathistorical and mythic chapter of cowboys on horseback. The Grady ranch was established byJohn Grady Cole's great-grandfather in 1866, and tended by his grandfather until 1949. Itslifespan, then, parallels the lifespan of the American cowboy. The death of the grandfatherexpresses a larger phenomenon: a way of life passed away, too. The ranch is no longerprofitable, and will be sold by John Grady's mother, a woman who aspires to a cosmopolitanlife away from the solitude and hardships of the ranch. John Grady realizes this when he ridesout the night of the funeral and stands in the sunset: in McCarthy's words, he "stood like a mancome to the end of something."

Cormac McCarthy is perhaps the great American poet of the sunset. This is a novel filled withsunsets, and the sunset described as "coppering" John Grady's face at the novel's beginning ismirrored by the sunset at the novel's end, following the funeral of Abuela, the last survivingconnection to the old way of life at the ranch. We are told then, too, of the sun "coppering hisface." Throughout the novel we have sunsets, signifying the end of things and painting thenovel's scenes blood-red.

John Grady Cole is a relic from an earlier time, perhaps even a relic from a mythic time thatnever truly existed in history. He refuses to accept the passing of the cowboy age symbolized inthe novel's many sunsets. The novel's action is driven by this refusal: John Grady leaves homein search of something he cannot exactly express, but which clarifies itself as an inchoate andpassionate love of land, of cattle and horses, of independence and honor. He associates thesethings with the past of the West, a past which he pursues implacably. His search may wellprove unsuccessful: readers will see that at the end of the novel John Grady is still headed west,still riding off into a sunset, just as he does at the beginning of the novel.

But it could be argued equally easily--and perhaps more compellingly--that John Grady doesindeed rediscover the mythic West: he recreates it, idealized, in his own romantic and heroiccode of conduct, and he finds it in Mexico, entirely deromanticized and stripped to its brutalcore. The great American novelist William Faulkner once said that the past is not, in fact, past:it is instead present, and unavoidable. We see echoes of this maxim (and of many otherFaulknerian stylistic and philosophical tropes) throughout this novel. From the very beginning,McCarthy raises the question of the relationship between the past and the present. When JohnGrady rides out in the evening after his grandfather's funeral, he rides out along an oldComanche road. The ghosts of the Comanche, on the move across the plains, are audible in thesound of the wind. These men are warriors, bound by pledges of blood, and their spiritcontinues to inhabit the West of this novel. Here there is a sense that the violent past of theWest has bled into the soil, and beats down in the perpetual red sunlight; it is an inheritance,

recurrent and unavoidable.

Chapter I - Part 2

Summary

John Grady Cole and Rawlins ride out of San Angelo, headed south towards Mexico. Theyencounter no trouble. Indeed, they live the life they've imagined belongs to cowboys: sleepingunder the stars, subsisting hand-to-mouth, and migrating always towards a greener pasture. Asthey ride they maintain an occasional banter, adopting the laconic humor and wisdom theyassociate with cowboys.

A few days into their journey, the companions discover that somebody is following them. Heturns out to be a thirteen-year-old boy who calls himself Jimmy Blevins and rides amagnificent and valuable horse. Rawlins is disdainful of Blevins, and, after jokinglythreatening to kill the boy and steal his horse, the two companions leave Blevins and continueon their way. But on the banks of the Rio Grande, as they are preparing to cross over intoMexico, he catches them again, and this time, despite Rawlins' repeated objections, Blevinsmanages to convince them to let him travel with them. On the other side of the river, inMexico, Rawlins again begins poking fun at Blevins, whom he derides as an inexperienced boy.Blevins goes some distance towards proving his competence when he succeeds in a remarkablefeat of marksmanship, shooting a hole through Rawlins' wallet.

In Mexico, they continue to travel unmolested: the people are wretchedly poor, but friendly andhospitable. The travelers are taken in for the night by a friendly family, but Blevins storms outembarrassed when he falls off his bench at the dinner-table: we learn that he cannot toleratebeing embarrassed or mocked. Blevins refuses even to come back into the house to sleep. Thetwo older boys meet him again the next morning, on the road. Over lunch, Rawlins and Blevinsdiscuss horsemanship, and Rawlins claims that John Grady Cole is the finest rider ever. Withtypical modesty, John Grady deflects the claim. Later, in another conversation, Rawlins andJohn Grady learn more about Blevins' past: he has run away from home before, because he willnot tolerate discipline from his stepfather.

On their ride south, the companions pass many groups of Mexicans. They are unsuccessful inan attempt to buy water, and end up with alcohol. By the time a storm blows up, they are badlydrunk. Blevins is superstitious about storms--his family has a history of getting struck bylighting--and he panics: he abandons his horse, strips himself of all metal objects, including hispants and shirt, which have metal buckles, and hides in a ravine. Rawlins and John Grady hidebeneath a rock outcropping to wait out the storm. When they find Blevins the next day, he haslost his clothing and his horse. He puts on a shirt of John Grady's, and they continue theirjourney southward. They run into their first taste of depravity when a band of migrant workers,with whom they stop for lunch, offers to buy the half-naked Blevins as a slave.

The companions ride into the village of Encantada, where they find Blevins' horse and pistol:but someone else has found them first and appropriated them. John Grady and Rawlins discusstheir predicament: Rawlins is worried that Blevins, and his desire to reclaim his property, willget them into trouble. John Grady insists on standing by Blevins. That night, they creep intoEncantada and try to steal the horse. Blevins succeeds in reclaiming the horse, but he wakes up

everyone in the village: chased by a gun-wielding posse, the Americans ride out of town. Theydecide to split up. Blevins, on the better horse, will try to outrun the pursuit; the other two leavethe road and try to evade their pursuers.

Separated from Blevins, John Grady and Rawlins continue south, safely away from theEncantada posse. After a few days of travel, hungry and thirsty, they come to a vast stretch ofgrasslands and meet a troop of cowboys. They have arrived at the Hacienda de Nuestra Senorade la Purisima Concepcion. As the Americans ride into the ranch, they are passed on the roadby a beautiful young girl, who proves to be Alejandra, the rancher's daughter. The first chapterof the novel ends as John Grady and Rawlins are hired by the ranch's foreman, Armondo, andsettle happily into their lives as cowboys.

Commentary

This section begins as the most untroubled in a troubled novel. For an idyllic stretch of perhapsa few days and thirty pages, there is no violence. Nothing goes wrong. The journey from SanAngeelo to Mexico is accomplished flawlessly and easily. It conforms to the expectations ofthe teenage cowboys: this is the life they imagined living, without responsibility, under the sunand starlit nights. It is not that the life is either easy or leisured; they do not have the creaturecomforts of civilization. But this is precisely the point: their aim is to act like the men who filltheir idealized imaginings, men not of leisure but of serious purpose, effort, and perseverance.Of course, the two teenagers have yet to encounter situations that will require their true effortand perseverance. Instead, they begin to think--especially Rawlins, the more immature and lessdriven of the two--that they have succeeded in recapturing the cowboy lifestyle. For now wehave the sense of a storm building (this storm, of course, will be both literal and figurative),that this idyll is merely a prelude to the bloody trauma of their trial-by-fire; as the nervousRawlins puts it, "Just seems too damn easy in a way." Suffering will authenticate their choiceof lifestyle: the price it will eventually exact will be nearly incalculable.

If rough and independent living is inseparable from the life to which Rawlins and John GradyCole aspire, so too is their laconic style of speech. As the companions ride, we overhear theirdialogue. There is a stoic refusal to convey emotion; an avoidance of introspection andelaborate discussion in favor of aphoristic wisdom and statements of fact; occasionally, there issome quiet humor. Of the two companions, Rawlins is the more talkative and nervous: hemakes jokes, boasts, and pokes fun at Blevins. John Grady remains nearly silent throughout,especially during Rawlins' conversations with Blevins. John Grady's silences are not merely anincidental facet of his personality: they are part and parcel of the code to which he subscribes,and which governs all of his behavior.

Readers of American literature will recognize John Grady's silences and speech patterns. Theyare a version of the patterns shared by the protagonists of Ernest Hemingway's novels and shortstories. Like John Grady, Hemingway's men subscribe to what Hemingway critics have referredto as a "sportsman's code," characterized by scrupulous honesty, self-control, courage, skill,and stoicism. Adherence to this code, for Hemingway's heroes, is necessary for survival, andalso necessary to retain any honor and individuality in the chaos of human life. The same mightbe said of John Grady Cole. Although his code leads him again and again into mortal danger--inthis section he refuses to abandon Blevins and attempts to rescue Blevins' horse, and later in the

novel he returns to the ranch to see Alejandra and refuses to bend to Perez' will--it eventuallypreserves him as a moral creature. John Grady's triumphs in the novel are largely internaltriumphs, and they flow from his unwavering adherence to his moral code. This moral code, inMcCarthy as in Hemingway, manifests itself in the speech patterns of its adherents: it demandsthoughtfulness rather than verbosity; modest silence rather than boasting; concise wisdomrather than elaborate argument and discussion; and repression of emotion rather thanexpression of fears or weakness.

Chapter 2

Summary

The Hacienda de Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion (Ranch of Our Lady of theImmaculate Conception), where the young Americans John Grady Cole and Rawlins find workas cowboys, is a huge spread owned by Don Hector Rocha y Villareal, a wealthy Mexicanaristocrat. John Grady quickly proves himself a master horseman when, with Rawlins' help, hesuccessfully breaks a group of sixteen horses in only three days, a remarkable feat. This successearns the Americans the favor of Armondo, the ranch's foreman, and of his brother Antonio.

John Grady is called in to see Don Hector, and quickly impresses the rancher with hisknowledge of horses. Don Hector promotes him: John Grady moves out of the cowboys'bunkroom and into a room of his own in the stable. John Grady will help Don Hector breed themagnificent new stallion that he has bought. John Grady's move to the stable also gives himgreater exposure to the rancher's beautiful daughter, Alejandra. One Sunday, Rawlins and JohnGrady go into the neighboring town, La Vega, and buy new clothing. That night they go to adance at the local grange hall. Alejandra is there, and she and John Grady dance and go walkingoutside.

One evening, while riding Don Hector's new stallion bareback across the ranch, John Gradyonce again meets Alejandra, whom he has not seen since the night of the dance. She commandshim to let her ride the stallion, and he is forced to accede. As he brings her horse back to thebarn, however, he is seen by a shadowy someone from the ranch house. Soon afterward theDuena Alfonsa, Alejandra's aunt, calls John Grady for an audience at the ranch house. Afterthey play chess, she orders him not to be seen again with Alejandra. Five nights later, Alejandracomes to visit John Grady at night. Secretly, they begin to ride out together at night through theranch. One night he swims out naked into the ranch's lake, and she too removes her clothes andjoins him.

There comes a day, perhaps immediately afterwards, when five Mexican soldiers ride up to theranch house. There is the sense that they are there to inquire after the Americans, but they leavewithout taking further action. The next night, and for the subsequent nine nights, Alejandraagain visits John Grady in his room, and they make love. Then Alejandra goes back to stay withher mother in Mexico City, where she lives, and John Grady is again invited to the ranch houseto play pool with Don Hector, who tells him that Alejandra is being sent away for schooling inFrance. It is only a week afterwards that John Grady learns from Antonio that Alejandra has notbeen sent to France at all: she is being kept inside the ranch house.

A few days later finds John Grady and Rawlins in the mountains, roping wild horses. DonHector's greyhounds walk into their campfire circle one night, and the two suspect that DonHector has found out about the affair, and come to the mountains to hunt and kill them. Thenext morning, the Mexican soldiers return. This time, they take John Grady and Rawlins awayin chains.

Commentary

Like a lot of tough men before them, John Grady Cole and Cormac McCarthy are bothromantics. All the stoicism of John Grady's cowboy code, all of his emotional self-repressionand his long silences, serve not to conceal but to throw into sharp relief his innate romanticism.When he runs into Alejandra riding on the ranch, he is defenseless: her "eyes had altered theworld forever in the space of a heartbeat." This is a little bit of a surprising sentence to read inthis novel. For one thing, a good argument could be made that it is a poor sentence--clichd,unevocative, naive--for such a master stylist as McCarthy. For another, love at first sight mayseem a strange emotion for a cowboy like John Grady Cole. What follows, too--when looked atfrom a certain vantage point--is something of a predictable romantic plot: a poor boy falls inlove with a rich girl, and eventually wins her heart, beginning a passionate affair despite themachinations of her powerful relatives.

Of course, John Grady's love affair falls to pieces. And the machinations of Alejandra'srelatives, in their deviousness and in the concrete power of the repercussions, go far beyondwhat would be expected in a typical romance novel. But it should be acknowledged that JohnGrady is a romantic, and this is a romantic novel. To embrace an ideal, to privilege a dreamover reality, is fundamentally a romantic undertaking. The care and the obvious love thatMcCarthy lavishes on the physical landscape bespeaks a deep-seated romanticism: hesometimes cannot restrain his urge to gild and burnish the hills and sky of the West, to endowthem with a power that goes beyond the tangible. The assertion that the physical landscape ofthe West has metaphysical meaning, just as much as the valorization of John Grady Cole'sdoomed heroism, is in itself a romantic assertion.

Not that this is a novel that avoids facing the cruelties and concreteness of reality: the thirdchapter, which tells the story of John Grady and Rawlins in jail, is an unsparing story aboutphysical and psychological cruelty and suffering. As the back cover of the novel's paperbackversion luridly proclaims, this novel details a landscape "where dreams are paid for in blood."But that does not mean that the dreams have been rendered illegitimate. Indeed, the world ofAll the Pretty Horses is a world in which dreams and reality seem to inhabit the same space.Dreams leave their mark on reality, just as the past leaves its mark on the present, refusing tovanish from relevance: as Alfonsa tells John Grady, scars have the power to remind one of thereality of the past. We remember that we know almost nothing about John Grady physically,only that he has a scar on his cheek. He seems a human connection with the past and with theshadowy world of dreams, which is no less real for its being imagined.

If dreams alter and reflect reality, they are also constituted by reality. As John Grady watchesAlejandra ride away into a summer rainstorm, the novel reflects on the scene before him: "realhorse, real rider, real land and sky"--and yet a dream. Somehow the concrete elements of thelandscape, evoked into being so effectively by McCarthy, combine to form something otherthan real. This transmutation is akin to the alchemical process of mythmaking, the process bywhich the West was transformed from coldly literal reality into nationally worshiped mirage.The novel's opening line is a key to deciphering this transubstantiation. There, Johhn Gradycomes inside to look at his grandfather's corpse, and the novel tells us that both the candleflame and the image of the candle flame gutter in the wind through the open door. Similarly,only a few pages later, we hear about the Comanches, who are simultaneously "nation and ghostof nation." In All the Pretty Horses, as in the study of the American West, we are confronted

with both a thing and its own dreamlike reflection, a thing and the spectral image of a thing.John Grady is confronted with a Mexico that is both an incarnation of his romantic imaginingsabout the West, and the twisted and terrifying reality behind that romance; just as he, himself,is both an authentic cowboy and the self- conscious, stylized, image of a cowboy.

Chapter III

Summary

The Mexican guards take John Grady Cole and Rawlins northward. On the third day of travel,the manacled prisoners reach the town of Encantada, the same town where they helped Blevinsrecover his stolen horse. There, the two Americans have an argument: Rawlins blames JohnGrady for their arrest, maintaining that Don Hector turned the Americans over to the policebecause he learned of what Rawlins sees as John Grady's foolish affair with Alejandra. JohnGrady asks for Rawlins' loyalty, maintaining that were the situations reversed he would showRawlins the same loyalty.

In the Encantada jail, the Americans find Blevins. It seems that Blevins was not content toescape with his horse: instead he returned to Encantada and reclaimed his gun, as well. In thechase that followed, Blevins shot and killed one of his pursuers. He has been in the jail eversince. The next day, the local police captain takes Rawlins in for questioning. He accusesRawlins of being a murderer and impersonator, and tortures him until he confesses to crimes hedid not commit. He does not torture John Grady, but he accuses him, too, of being a liar and acriminal.

Three days later, guards place the three Americans in the bed of a truck, and then drive themsouth to the prison at Saltillo. In the front of the truck ride the captain and the charro. Theyprogress southwards in a curiously casual manner, delivering mail and produce to passingvillages. Eventually they stop near an abandoned farm: the captain and the charro take Blevinsinto a grove and execute him. The truck continues to Saltillo, where John Grady and Rawlinsare transferred to the Saltillo prison.

The prison is brutal. The prisoners are cruel and violent, and the Americans spend their firstdays in a continuous fight for survival. They are badly bruised and battered, but they supporteach other, and John Grady exhorts Rawlins not to surrender. They suspect that the prisoncommandant believes that they are rich, and is waiting for them to bribe him. After a few days,they are summoned to see Perez, a wealthy and influential prisoner who also asks them for abribe. The day after they refuse him--after all, they have no money--a man knifes Rawlins inthe prison-yard. Rawlins is taken to the prison infirmary, and John Grady loses contact withhim.

Desperate to learn what happened to Rawlins, John Grady goes three days later to see Perez.Perez talks to him about the necessity of seeing things--evil, money, human nature--as theytruly are, of discarding romantic notions; he also makes sinister innuendoes about what willhappen if John Grady does not bribe him. John Grady still refuses to deal. The next day, he usesthe last of his money to buy a knife to protect himself against the attack that will inevitablycome. Soon it does: an assassin tries to stab him in the mess hall. They fight, and John Grady isseriously wounded, but at the last moment he is successful in killing his assailant. Staggeringfrom the hall, he collapses in the prison-yard, and is taken to the infirmary by none other thanPerez' bodyguard.

Days pass in the darkness and pain of the infirmary; John Grady is badly scarred, but hesurvives and heals. Still weak, he is brought before the jail warden, given an envelope full ofmoney, and, together with Rawlins, released onto the street. John Grady discovers that it wasAlfonsa, Alejandra's great-aunt, who paid for their release. They discuss what they have done,and what they will do. Rawlins, haunted by the memory of Blevins' death, decides to returnhome to Texas; John Grady will remain in Mexico, and make a last attempt to reclaim theirhorses and win over Alejandra. The chapter's end sees Rawlins on a bus home, and John Gradyhitchhiking a ride back north towards Don Hector's ranch.

Commentary

Cormac McCarthy's sentences have a balance and flow that make their author a worthy heir toone of America's greatest prose stylists, William Faulkner. One of McCarthy's most strikingtechniques is his variation of pace. In general (although not a hard-and-fast rule), McCarthy'sdescriptions of thoughts and observations tend toward the staccato exhilaration of quickmovement, the outpouring of richly evocative phrases piled behind and on top of each other;his descriptions of action, somewhat paradoxically, seem relatively still and serene. Contrastthe rush of John Grady's dream of horses, which flows toward and past the reader in a stream ofsensation, with the novel's many crisp, terse descriptions of action, so detailed and dry as to bematter-of-fact, even in the crucial scene when John Grady kills the assassin. The action comeswithout melodrama, simply and directly. If you read too fast, you might miss it.

Throughout All the Pretty Horses, there is the sense that some things cannot be adequatelyexpressed. This is a belief cherished by John Grady, but it is also evident that the novel itselfaccepts this attitude stylistically and philosophically. It is a curious attitude for a novel. Theidea that a novel must necessarily fail in conveying some motions or describing some thingsseems self-defeating. And yet we have it clearly. Speaking of John Grady's dream of runninghorses, the novel praises the "resonance" of the world itself, which "cannot be spoken but onlypraised." The novel throws up its hands: there are moments and emotions better described bysilence and implication, better guessed and inferred than fleshed out in words. This attitude isexpressed most clearly by John Grady in his rejection of the falsehoods offered by the captain:he says that the truth is "what happened," not words out of someone's mouth. If John Grady'scode of honor approaches a religion of courage, endurance, stoicism, honesty, faithfulness, andskill (unlike Rawlins, John Grady rarely talks about God or heaven, preferring instead to beguided by his own absolute moral principles), then action is his preferred mode of ceremonialworship. John Grady, it has been noted, is laconic to the extreme. He believes that actions, intheir purity, speak for themselves.

Perhaps one of the clearest indicators of this novel's belief in the deceptiveness of speech isevident in the fact that the novel's great talkers and ideologues--Alfonsa, Don Hector, thecaptain, and Perez--are all either fundamentally evil or at least antagonists to John Grady.Alfonsa and Perez, especially, cloak their actions in complicated philosophical rationalizations.They are, in fact, the most eloquent characters in the novel. To combat them, John Grady hasonly his commitment to his idea of what is right, expressed plainly and honestly: Alfonsa tellshim that it is not a matter of what is right, but of "who must say." This act of saying, the novelseems to indicate, is fundamentally untrustworthy.

In the prison, Perez presents John Grady with his version of a moral code: realism. Perezbelieves that Americans, and their exemplar, John Grady, are flawed because they fail to seethings as they truly are: he claims that the American looks only at what he wants to see. JohnGrady refuses to recognize the stark reality that underlies Mexican behavior. In Mexico, Perezpreaches, evil is not an abstracted idea but a presence, incarnated. Strictly moral behavior willbring death. Only those who are both brave and devious survive. This may, ultimately, provetrue in the Mexico portrayed by McCarthy. Blevins dies, and John Grady repeatedly facesdeath. But John Grady's own moral survival is conditioned on his continued adherence to hisunspoken code, without which his life is not worth living.

Chapter IV - Part 1

Summary

John Grady Cole heads north, back towards Don Hector's ranch, meeting only with the simplekindness of the local Mexicans. Antonio, his old friend from the ranch, shows him kindness aswell, as do the hired cowboys. He goes to see Alfonsa, Alejandra's manipulative grandaunt.From Alfonsa, he learns that it was Don Hector who turned him over to the Mexican policeafter he conducted his own investigation into John Grady's relationship with Blevins. He alsolearns that a condition of Alfonsa paying for his release from jail was Alejandra's promisenever to see John Grady again. Alfonsa speaks to him of her view of the world, her belief thatlife is controlled by inscrutable forces. She also tells him about her childhood of privilege, andher decision to cast her lot with the revolutionary, Francisco Madero, who became the country'sfirst democratic president. She fell in love with this revolutionary's brother and helper, GustavoMadero, who showed her tremendous kindness when she believed herself an outcast for lifeafter she lost part of her hand in a shooting accident. Her family, however, disapproved of herrelationship with Gustavo, and kept her in Europe until Gustavo married, rose to power, andwas eventually tortured and killed by a mob of counter-revolutionaries. As a result of thecruelty and deprivation she has seen in her life, Alfonsa believes that the only eternal truths aregreed and bloodlust: the world, she says, is consistent in destroying dreams. Alfonsa believesherself to be a libertine and a iconoclast, but she still refuses to consider John Grady--whomshe considers a criminal or at least a victim of circumstance--as a match for Alejandra.

Alfonsa will not entertain his suit, and Alejandra is in Mexico City; there is nothing for JohnGrady at the ranch, and so he leaves. Riding out of town, he shares his lunch with a group ofMexican children, who give him their simple, innocent and hopeless advice about how he canregain his lost love. He calls Alejandra, who eventually promises that she will leave school aday early for vacation, take a train from Mexico City to the town of Zacatecas, and meet himbefore she goes on to the ranch.

Alejandra joins John Grady in Zacatecas, and they spend a tortured twenty-four hours together.That night, he tells her about his experiences in jail, and she confesses that she was the one,manipulated by Alfonsa, who told Don Hector about their affair. She confirms that Don Hectorhad John Grady arrested as a result. She believes her affair with John Grady has made herfather stop loving her. The next day, she tells him that she cannot bring herself to go with himto America. As if in a dream, he takes her to the train and she leaves. John Grady is devastated.

Commentary

There is a sacramental aspect to blood in this novel. There is, of course, a sacramental aspect toblood in Christian religion: it is a substance both transformed and transforming. The wine ofcommunion becomes--either symbolically or, for Catholics, actually--the blood of Jesus. Inturn, this blood has the capacity to recreate an individual anew. Christians speak of being "bornagain in the body and blood of Christ." Similarly in All the Pretty Horses, blood is both sacreditself, and possesses the capacity to sanctify. We have numerous instances in which things,especially aspects of the physical landscape, are painted in red, transubstantiated into blood.

And we have the fact that it is through bloody sacrifice that John Grady reaches his maturity:when he leaves the prison and heads back to the ranch, after bleeding at the hands of theassassin, he is described as a "newfound evangelical being."

Whether or not John Grady is a religious man, in the sense of being a believing Christian andman of faith, is open to doubt. What seems clear is that this is a religious novel, concerned withthe relationship between the human, the natural, and the supernatural. There is a great deal oftalk about God and the spiritual: there is Rawlins and his discussions of heaven; seeminglyincidental remarks and scenes, as when the old Mexican prays to the God by whose will, hebelieves, all things grow (at the beginning of the chapter); and Alfonsa, with her talk about Godthat is simultaneously devout and heretical. Alfonsa refers to God as knowing everything, andyet believes that he is powerless to interfere with the passions that govern the world harshlyand with inexorable force. In her world, God must prove himself, just as man must be tested, inblood.

The paradox of Alfonsa's personality is that she is both a traditionalist and a libertine; she is,one might say, a radical conservative. She believes both in an omniscient God and in forces thatoverwhelm him. These forces are not given the name of fate; for Alfonsa, they are morepowerful than fate. The world, in her view, is like a vast puppet-theater, and the strings arepulled by these forces. Avarice, bloodlust, and impetuousness are embedded in human nature,and probably in the nature of things inhuman as well. Individual human agency--the capacity ofmen and women to influence their own lives and realize their dreams--is impossible in the faceof these forces, which are simultaneously impersonal and deeply embedded in the humanpersonality. It is human folly and stubbornness to persist with the kind of romantic dreams thatmotivate John Grady Cole: life and death act against them: "Between the wish and the thing,"goes the mellifluous aphorism, "the world lies waiting." This sentiment is reminiscent of, andperhaps cannot help but have been influenced by, Lieutenant Frederic Henry's famousrealization at the end of Ernest Hemingway's great novel A Farewell to Arms : "The worldbreaks everyone.... It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. Ifyou are none of those you can be sure that it will kill you too but there will be no specialhurry."

Whether or not the world of this novel is indeed as Alfonsa sees it is open to question. Indeed,the moral and logical coherence of Alfonsa's philosophy is thrown into doubt. She seemspreternaturally eloquent, dispensing her wisdom in both elegant aphorisms and long,beautifully told stories. But it could well be argued that she is neither internally consistent withher own argument (the question of whether or not Alfonsa believes in fate is utterly unresolved)nor is she honest about her own motivations. Again, eloquence and verbosity in All the PrettyHorses are to be distrusted. It could be argued (although this argument takes something awayfrom the complexity of her character) that Alfonsa is indeed what John Grady thinks her: abitter old woman determined to shatter Alejandra and John Grady as she herself was shattered.All the talk about philosophy and human nature may just be a smokescreen. It could also be,more intriguingly, that Alfonsa is unaware of her own motivations. Her complex musings aboutdestiny and fate have wrapped her inside a web of words, and she is unable to see clearlybeyond them.

Chapter IV - Part 2

Summary

After Alejandra leaves him in Zacatecas, John Grady Cole rides northward, wracked by sorrow.When he reaches Encantada, the town where he, Rawlins, and Blevins were imprisoned, hedetermines that he will not leave Mexico without retrieving his horse from the captain whoimpounded it when he falsely arrested the Americans. John Grady breaks into the captain'soffice and holds him at gunpoint. He forces the captain to take him to the house of the charro,the man who paid to have Blevins executed. There, they find Rawlins' horse. John Grady forcesthe two men to take him out to the ranch where the other horses--his and Blevins'--are beingheld.

The horses are there, but as John Grady leaves the stable with them he is shot from behind, inthe leg; two of the men who work at the ranch figured out what was happening, and lay in waitfor him. In tremendous pain, he manages to mount and ride out of the stable-yard, driving theriderless horses in front of him and taking the captain, whose shoulder was painfully dislocatedin the confusion, with him as a hostage. He is pursued by six riders, but manages to evade themthroughout the day.

That night, John Grady heats a pistol barrel and uses it to cauterize his wound. The captain isexhausted and in agony, but John Grady, despite his own considerable pain, insists on ridingonward through the night and the next day. When he finally sleeps, he is woken by a troop oflocal men, who question him about the horses and take the captain, but leave John Gradyunharmed. Alone now, he continues riding northward through the Mexican countryside, feelingutterly alone, reflecting on the terrible cost of pain and suffering the world exacts on beauty.Finally, John Grady crosses the Rio Grande back into Texas. It is Thanksgiving Day, 1950. Hesenses that his father has died during his absence, and for the first and only time in this novelJohn Grady begins to cry.

For weeks, John Grady travels across the border country, looking for the true owner of Blevins'horse. Three men swear out a false warrant for the horse, and the matter goes to court. JohnGrady tells the full story of how the horse came to be in his possession, starting from the firsttime he met Blevins. The court is speechless. The judge is stunned, and awards the horse toJohn Grady. That night, John Grady goes to the judge's house and talks with him, confessingthat he is tormented by killing the assassin in the Mexican jail, and by almost killing thecaptain.

Listening to the radio the next Sunday morning, John Grady hears the Jimmy Blevins GospelHour. He rides to meet preacher Blevins, thinking that the boy who claimed to be JimmyBlevins must have known the preacher, and that perhaps the horse truly belongs to the preacher.This proves not to be the case. Next, John Grady goes to visit Rawlins. They talk about JohnGrady's experiences in Mexico since Rawlins left, and Rawlins confirms that John Grady'sfather is dead. A distance has opened up between them, and John Grady realizes that he cannotstay in San Angelo.

John Grady watches the funeral of Abuela, Louisa's mother, the last connection with the oldway of life at the ranch. Afterward he drifts westward, riding out into the sunset. The novelends.

Commentary

The scene where the wounded hero sits by a campfire and cauterizes his wounds with hot metalis not unfamiliar to Western movies and novels. It is emblematic of toughness and resolve: thehero stoically does what is good for him, even if it involves pain. John Grady Cole does it too.But he does not do it gracefully. What follows on John Grady Cole's application of the burningmetal to his open wound is a scene of absolute chaos. It is tough, in that confusion, even to tellthe location of the principle characters and what they are doing. John Grady, it is clear, isscreaming bloody murder. If in the end we must evaluate John Grady as a hero, his is a kind ofdiminished heroism, a kind that would perhaps have been unfamiliar to John Wayne, a kind thatadmits to weakness and vulnerability. Perhaps it is precisely that diminishment which placesJohn Grady on a human scale and allows the reader to appreciate him both as a hero and as aperson.

Not that John Grady Cole is weak. With all that he goes through, we see him cry precisely onetime in the novel, and then it is so understated that we might miss it. At the novel's end, herides his horse back over the river to Texas, and senses that his father has died during hisabsence. It is then that he cries. What strikes John Grady is more than sadness over the death ofhis father, a beaten man with whom John Grady shared silences more often than words. Even inhis return to his home country, John Grady recognizes that he is fundamentally rootless: theranch is sold; Abuela, the last connection to the farm, is dying; and his father is dead. Whatcomes with the realization that his father is dead is the realization that, as John Grady tellsRawlins, "it aint my country," and he no longer knows where "his country" is. Neither, in thefinal analysis, does the novel. The question of why these changes occur, making certainlifestyles obsolete and men rootless, is fundamental to this novel, tied to the questions of fate,destiny, and inscrutable historical forces. All the Pretty Horses is a superstitious novel in thesense that it believes there are forces--tied to places like the vast West and perhaps evenemanating from God--that exert control over human destiny. A heroic response to these forcesis almost inevitably a tragic response. John Grady Cole goes to meet destiny and bloodlust withnothing more than the cowboy code of skill, honor, and stoicism. His defeat may be inevitable,but, as the great critic Edmund Wilson has said, the recognition that goodness and bravery arein vain "is not in the least the same thing as saying that there is no use in being good or brave."

Analytical Overview

The American conception of the West is a romantic ideal born of a profoundly unromanticreality. It has been the self-appointed role of contemporary scholarship and culture to reachpast the popular vision of America's westward expansion and settlement--a vision shaped andcolored by hundreds of Western movies and their depictions of death without blood, andsolitary heroic cowboys vanquishing ultimately cowardly villains--in an attempt to recover thetrue history of the American West, to remove the romantic and heroic veneer from a past ofviolence and prejudice, of dreams shattered as much as hopes fulfilled. Cormac McCarthy'snovel All the Pretty Horses concerns itself with the meeting place between realism andromanticism.

All the Pretty Horses is set in 1949 and 1950. The opening of the novel shows John Grady Cole,a sixteen-year-old Texan who wants badly to be a cowboy, at the funeral of his grandfather. Thedriving economic force in Texas, it becomes clear to John Grady, is oil rather than cattle: afterthe funeral, John Grady's mother will sell the ranch the grandfather owned, and on which JohnGrady was raised. It is a ranch built by John Grady's great-grandfather in the formative years ofthe cowboy culture, the years immediately after the Civil War, and its passing out of the familyis a symbol of the passing of the old West, the West of cowboys, horses, and cattle. But JohnGrady Cole retains a romantic vision of the cowboy life, and he tries desperately to live his lifeaccording to the code he has both inherited and invented, defined by the critic Jane Tompkinsas consisting of "self-discipline; unswerving purpose; the exercise of knowledge, skill,ingenuity, and excellent judgment; and a capacity to continue in the face of total exhaustionand overwhelming odds." In order to live his life by this code, John Grady Cole needs to leavethe United States for Mexico, to go to a place American civilization has not yet reached.Looking for something that has been lost from America--indeed, some romantic lifestyle whichmay never have existed--he travels to a place that is, on a metaphysical level, more West thanthe West.

All the Pretty Horses is the story of this cowboy code of honor--the foundation of the Westernlifestyle--put to the test. It is the story of the maturation of John Grady Cole in blood, as hisromantic idealism is tried in a place where survival does not concede anything to propriety andnobility. All the Pretty Horses tries to describe, time and again, the human and psychologicalcost of living according to dreams and romantic ideals: it is the search for the romantic cowboylife that leads John Grady and his companions into Mexico; it is the romantic pursuit offorbidden love that ends in John Grady's harrowing imprisonment.

What is remarkable in all this is that John Grady Cole survives, and his idealism survives aswell. In Mexico he finds nothing but tragedy, but he keeps faith with his religion of stoicismand skill and competence. If McCarthy's is a de-romanticized world peopled by the cynical andthe savage, men and women driven by the need above all else to survive, John Grady Coleremains a hero, albeit shrunken and sensitive--perhaps the ghost of a hero, a hero victim toanachronism. Most moving and tragic among John Grady's heroic traits is his refusal to bow tofate, his insistence on personal responsibility. John Grady is a cowboy who denies destiny,however manifest: All the Pretty Horses details its hero's struggle against forces of history and

changing economy, against social barriers and overwhelming odds. On some level, John GradyCole fails tragically. On another level, whether he succeeds or fails must be measured in termsof his consistency to his internal code. In All the Pretty Horses, the fabled Western mindset hasbecome internalized: it is something perhaps absent from the external world but that exists inthe minds of heroes. Indeed, it is fair to say that All the Pretty Horses is about theinternalization of a myth that has always been writ in starkly physical, larger than life terms. Itslandscapes, sunsets, horses, and mountains, so iconic of the West, are symbols and reflections;through them the novel concerns itself with the human soul.

Study Questions

It is always difficult to assess the relationship between our finest American contemporaryauthors and their literary predecessors, since such an assessment generally implies a relativeassessment of worth. This SparkNote has tried to suggest a few ways in which CormacMcCarthy can be considered an heir to William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. Think of oneor two authors from an earlier literary generation (other than Hemingway and Faulkner) andwrite about the relationship of their work to McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses.

The Western genre of film and literature has been important and popular in American culture,from High Noon in 1952 to Dances with Wolves in 1990, from the novels of Owen Wister tothose of Louis L'Amour. What makes for "genre" fiction is the adherence to certain literaryconventions, the application to the text of a certain literary ideology. Drawing from yourknowledge of outside sources, try to describe the conventions of a "Western." In what ways isAll the Pretty Horses a Western? In what ways, if any, does it transcend the Western genre?

It has often been remarked, especially with the rise of feminist criticism in the late twentiethcentury, that novels about the West are essentially novels about masculinity. Women tend toplay minor roles, serving as plot devices in novels concerned with the importance of manhoodand the proper way to act like a man. Is this generalization true about All the Pretty Horses?What are the roles of women in this novel? How are they different, if at all, from the roles ofmen? What can you say about the relationship between John Grady Cole and the women in Allthe Pretty Horses? What about John Grady Cole's attitude towards women?

All the Pretty Horses is a novel set at the end of the mythic era of cowboys. In some importantways, the novel is about the end of that era. What are John Grady Cole's feelings about the endof the cowboy era? What symbolism does the novel use to signify that end? (In your answer, tryto get beyond merely talking about sunsets.) In McCarthy's view, what does the end of that eramean, about the way the world and its inhabitants have changed?

All the Pretty Horses contains scenes of depraved cruelty, vicious cynicism, and bloodyviolence. It also contains scenes demonstrating hope, love, loyalty, and warmth. Do you think,in the end, that this is an optimistic or a pessimistic novel? What does the novel has to sayabout human nature, and the capacity of men and women for good and evil?

Before John Grady Cole leaves Texas for his tragic journey to Mexico, he sees his ex-girlfriend, Mary Catherine Barnett, for the last time. It is an uncomfortable conversation: he isembarrassed and upset, she is guilt-ridden. She proposes, in age-old fashion, that they befriends, to which John Grady responds, "It's just talk, Mary Catherine." "Everything's talk isn'tit?" she asks. "Not everything," he answers. What does this exchange indicate about JohnGrady's attitude towards speech? What else do we know from this novel about John Grady'shabits of speech and silence? What do his attitudes and habits imply about his personality?

Cormac McCarthy has strict rules about rendering conversation: he does not use quotationmarks, and he does not relate Spanish-language conversations in English. These are notaccidents, but conscious choices of a master stylist. What effect do these choices have on the

reader and on the narrative? If some of the novel's conversations are difficult to understand,what effect does that give? What does it mean about the novel and the world of the novel?

Consider the title of this novel. What does it mean? What relationship does it bear to the text?Keep in mind some of the novel's important themes: the role, and value of romanticism andsentimentality; maturation and innocence; the human soul, the collective soul, and the questionof whether it is possible to ever truly know another person or thing.

One of the concerns of All the Pretty Horses is its protagonist's maturation. John Grady Colegoes to Mexico with certain dreams about what it means to be a cowboy and a man. Whathappens to these dreams? Characterize John Grady Cole as a person and as a hero. How has hechanged? What has he changed into? Can he properly be called a hero? In this novel's view,what would it mean to call him a hero?

Review Quiz

What is the name of Rawlins' horse?

(A) Redbo(B) Padre(C) Junior(D) Gillian

How was Alfonsa injured?

(A) She was kicked in the face by a horse(B) In a shooting accident(C) She cut off her fingers with a knife(D) A careless doctor spilled acid on her face

Who is Armando?

(A) A worker on the Grady ranch(B) The foreman at Don Hector's hacienda(C) The rich prisoner at the Saltillo prison(D) A man who lets the Americans spend the night in his house

When John Grady and Rawlins first meet him, what does Blevins have concealed in the bib ofhis overalls?

(A) A bible(B) A revolver(C) A deed to his horse(D) A crucifix

What town is John Grady from?

(A) San Antonio(B) Corpus Christi(C) La Vega(D) San Angelo

What gift does John Grady's father give him at the start of the novel?

(A) His horse, Redbo(B) A silver revolver(C) A chess set(D) A new saddle

What is the captain's first name?

(A) Raul(B) Armando(C) Hector(D) Felix

In what year did John Grady's great-grandfather first build a house on his newly claimed ranch?

(A) 1921(B) 1949(C) 1849(D) 1866

What is the real Jimmy Blevins--not the boy who calls himself by that name--famous for?

(A) He is a bronco-buster(B) He is a radio-broadcasted preacher(C) He is a sharpshooter(D) He is a wealthy rancher

What is the name of the man with whom Alfonsa fell in love?

(A) Gustavo Madero(B) Antonio Barillo(C) Juan Castilla(D) Luis Carreras

What does Blevins shoot to demonstrate his excellent marksmanship?

(A) A wild turkey(B) A quarter(C) A tin can on a fence-post(D) Rawlins' wallet

What does the Texas judge NOT ask John Grady Cole?

(A) The number of hectares in Don Hector's ranch(B) Whether or not he is wearing clean underwear(C) What Rawlins' first name is(D) The name of the husband of Don Hector's cook

What surprising offer do the Mexican wax-makers make to John Grady?

(A) They offer to buy Blevins(B) They offer to kill the captain(C) They offer to help recover the lost horse and gun(D) They offer to loan the Americans some money

What is the name of the girl who breaks up with John Grady before he leaves for Mexico?

(A) Louisa Gonzalez(B) Mary Catherine Barnett(C) Annie Oakley(D) Karen Ogilvie

How many people, if any, does John Grady kill in this novel?

(A) Two(B) None(C) One(D) Four

Who pays the bribe to get Rawlins and John Grady out of the Saltillo prison?

(A) Jimmy Blevins(B) Alfonsa(C) Don Hector(D) Antonio

What does John Grady do to treat the bullet wound he suffers while rescuing the horses?

(A) He cauterizes it with iodine(B) He elevates it above his heart and waits for the bleeding to subside(C) Nothing--he ignores it(D) He burns it with a pistol barrel

What day is it when John Grady Cole finally returns to the United States?

(A) Thanksgiving Day(B) Christmas Day(C) New Year's Day(D) The Fourth of July

What is the last name of the lawyer who John Grady goes to see at the beginning of the novel,in San Angelo?

(A) Johnson(B) Gonzalez(C) Franklin(D) Blodgett

What does the name of Don Hector's ranch mean in English?

(A) The Ranch of Our Lady of Blessed Memory(B) The Ranch of St. Martin in the Fields(C) The Ranch of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception(D) The Ranch of St. Francisca of Blessed Memory

Suggestions for Further Reading

Brooks, Cleanth and Warren, Robert Penn. "The Killers." The Short Stories of ErnestHemingway: Critical Essays. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1975.

Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969.

Lamar, Howard R., ed. The Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West. New York: Crowell,1977.

Tompkins, Jane. West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1992.

Utley, Robert M. High Noon in Lincoln: Violence on the Western Frontier. Albuquerque, NM:The University of New Mexico Press, 1987.

Wilson, Edmund. The Shores of Light: A Literary Chronicle of the Twenties and Thirties.Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985.

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Table of Contents

Chapter I - Part 1Chapter I - Part 2Chapter 2Chapter IIIChapter IV - Part 1Chapter IV - Part 2

Chapter I - Part 1Chapter I - Part 2Chapter 2Chapter IIIChapter IV - Part 1Chapter IV - Part 2