A Reflection of All The Pretty Horses
The New York Times Book Review states that Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses, “puts most other American writers to shame.” The main character John Grady is the ideal American cowboy who sees horses as a way of life. The theme of a modern day Western full of horses is brought together with different dialect, irony, and how a cowboy Spanish speaker from Texas survives his journey through Mexico. John Grady is a cowboy unlike any others, who uses his knowledge to get his friends and him out of trouble. John Grady is accompanied by his best friend Lacey Rawlins so that he does not have face the foreign landscape on his own.
John Grady and his closest friend Rawlins decide that the Texas life in a America is not the life for them, so they decide to travel to Mexico on horseback. However, along the way, they meet a boy named Blevins who becomes both of their tragic flaws. “‘How old are you?’ asked Rawlins. “‘Sixteen’ the boy replied. “‘He’s lying out his ass,’ said Rawlins as he looked at John Grady. The use of dialect in the south is entirely different than that of people in the midwest. Readers will find that Rawlins is always mad at Blevins for pretty much being alive. Throughout their journey together, Rawlins and Grady find out that Blevins does not think things through before he acts.
Blevins was the kind…
‘“You rode her from Texas?’ ‘Yessir.’ ‘You and your friend?’ ‘Yessir.’ ‘Just the two of you?’ ‘Yessir.’ (McCarthy 116). It was because Don Hector had what was seemingly an endless supply of horses, and John Grady and his assistant Rawlins specialized in them, the two friends ended up with jobs on Don Hector’s thousand acre ranch. Due to John Grady’s keen survival skills, the two friends had finally found their calling. The two of them never imagined that all of their hard work was for…
