Joanne Hung

Editor-in-Chief

      Cormac McCarthy’s classic All the Pretty Horses has it all: open land and open skies, journeys on horse, gunfights, knife fights, a corrupt and villainous foreign official, and even an intriguing love story—all the makings of a typical Western. But this story is far from typical; the language, interweaving John Grady Cole and his horses, doesn’t just tell the simple story of a boy on a horse. All the Pretty Horses witnesses a beautiful nurturing of main character John Grady Cole’s soul, whether the story is examining romantic issues, peaceful nature, or even John Grady’s very own breath and existence—aspects which are all emphasized by all the pretty horses in McCarthy’s timeless tale.

           The narrative opens at a time when John Grady is desperately clinging onto a wistful idealism of ranches and ruggedness, even in the face of looming reality: the taming of his precious frontier. Horses remind John Grady of this old west—and later become his vehicle for pursuing it. John Grady’s grandfather’s recent death indicates not only the passing of someone who loved the frontier, but also the essential “passing” of the untamed terrain itself. His parents’ divorce additionally parallels the underlying conflict John Grady; his mother pines for the theatre and for settled, contemporary life of the “advanced” world, while his father has realized that his ex-wife doesn’t share the belief that the rancher’s ways “[are] the second best thing to dyin and goin to heaven.” The sale of the family ranch—and his mother’s refusal to lease it to him—have John Grady saddling up his horse defiantly, marking the map for Mexico with his good buddy Lacey Rawlins. Choosing horses over roads and rails may seem anachronistic amidst a modernizing world, but to the boys, horses epitomize the old ways, so horses—not buses or buggies—will take them across the borderline. After all, horses are the single element in Cole’s life he can still count on for constancy, and “happiness [is] being on horseback.” In their happy naïveté, Cole and Rawlins hope that in this Mexican frontier, they can chase what America is leaving behind with time. They consider Mexico an untouched, perfect sanctuary, similar to the world at the beginning of time. Their quest, successful, brings them to the eleven thousand acre La Purisima ranch, and it seems that they have ridden into their heavenly refuge. In fact, Cole finds it “a paradise, complete with its Eve…Alejandra.” There, his love, Alejandra, and his work, horses, keep him joyful. Love and work may seem like separate items, but they both come with the territory of his job—which revolves around horses, his original true love. The peace John Grady senses here testifies to his great and soul-fulfilling ambition: to run a ranch just like Don Héctor’s perfect La Purisima someday.

           But John Grady’s horses have more to offer than just romantic escape into the countryside. The idyllic presence of the land that the boys escape to coincides with the presence of the horses, and this harmonious combination saturates the atmosphere with a settling peace. For one thing, the beauty of nature embraces them, inviting them to explore this true frontier and escape the old land of Texas, chained by too many enclosures.  Naturally, they explore it with horses. What they discover is a land of relief and getaway that pampers these two foreigners and their horses. The Rio Grande even ceremoniously “baptizes” the little expedition as it crosses, and the boys respond by suddenly laughing and galloping off, feeling liberated. Moreover, nature isn’t associated just with this peace of mind—it also brings the boys and the horses basic, physical sustenance. Whenever John Grady and Lacey are idly munching their bacon and cornbread at the edge of a ciénaga or mesquite plain, the sound of the horses cropping at the grass is always nearby, soothing and familiar. Furthermore, because Cole finds harmony with nature, nature turns its attention to John Grady as well. The rustic description of the land reflects the boys’ attitude about their calming journey from Texas to Mexico; both nature and the horse ride across are laid-back and simply beautiful and enjoyable. At the end, a matured, disillusioned John Grady and his horse ride off into a “darkening land.” The land has changed, as John Grady has; both have a more solemn, darker, deeper quality about them due to the course of life.

           Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, as the plot progresses—and his soul develops—the connection between John Grady and his horses becomes less of a relationship and more of a union. This growing bond began with John Grady’s inborn knowledge and skill for horses, evident whenever he is even near a horse. Even Rawlins helps highlight John Grady’s extraordinary talent with horses: he brags to Blevins about John Grady’s talent, he loses horse races to him, and even his return trip—on bus—cannot compare with the dignity in which John Grady, on horseback, returns home. Then later, in pain, even the thought of horses rejuvenates him, as he rests from knife wounds and “[thinks] about horses” because they are “always the right thing to think about.” The life stream horses provide is necessary again when John Grady is shot in the leg as he attempts to save the horses. However, this time he discovers himself “breathing in rhythm” with the horse, so that it seems that the horse is actually his living breath. One of the reasons Cole goes back to reclaim the horses is because they make up an essential constituent of his being; how can he  live without something vital to him? In part, horses represent his maturity and dignity, for which he fights, wins, and brings back home. Notice, also, that in the closing lines, Cole’s and his horse’s long shadows mingle to form a single shadow—conveying the final “transformation” or union of man and horse—as this unified soul approaches “the world to come.”

           His idealism, the land, and his own breath all are the features that encompass John Grady Cole’s daily growth of soul and self. In any case, though, the element of horses, entwined within every aspect of his life, is an even more inescapable part of his essence. Whatever he does or wherever he goes, John Grady and his horses will be together, as one being, one entity—even if they decide to simply ride into the sunset.