all the pretty horses Essays (1144 words) - The Border Trilogy

Part 1: Pages 1-96 Chapter 1 I Like westerns a lot and while I read the first chapter of All the Pretty horses It felt like I was getting pulled right into the western action that was happening in the story. To me in a classic Western novel is set on a ranch that depends on different scenarios. Some examples would be overbearing fathers, servile mothers, and father- son conflicts over the fate of who is going to run the ranch, sibling rivalries, the complication of a wealthy buyer or corrupt sheriff trying to take over. This novel abandons all of these examples. John Grady is the first main character you meet who is an only child. His father is powerless and helpless. Grady's mother owns the ranch, decides what happens to it, as well as prevents all family conflict when she casually dismisses John from running the ranch. For the first time in a western novel that I have read that is the first time I heard that a boy could not be a cowboy. John Grady is a cowboy and always will be one that looks for a story to ad d to his life, just as any character looks for a novel to be apart. McCarthy?s perspective switches 3 times just alone in chapter one from Grady's lack of control over to the fate of the ranch to finally his assumption of control over his own fate. Often, characters are revealed not in an omniscient narrator's description or a character's explanation of a decision, but in the decision itself. For instance, John?s rite of passage is found not in his precocious desire to run the ranch, rather than his decision to leave it. A Western novel to me usually relies on impending conflict such as the anticipated showdown between the lawful and the lawless, the hero's race against time to save somebody or at the very least that "something bad is going to happen" feeling that prevents either the characters or the reader from getting too comfortable while reading. No one seems to have that feeling so far except for John whose character starts to change. If Grady is unsure and uncertain about som ething he starts to question. The change can be noticed in the dialogue between initial encounters with Blevins and other characters. Part 2: pages 97-151 Chapter 2 Chapter Two begins with Rawlins journey to Mexico, leisurely and blissfully recounting the exploits on Rocha's ranch. Grady and Rawlins fit all the criteria of a sacrificial victim - outsiders to a community, presumptuous in their desires to become members of the society, free from family attachments that would revenge a crime against them, and invested with the belief that the dangerous and vacuous belief as McCarthy puts it into that members of two communities can merge harmoniously together. John Grady and Rawlin must evolve from hero to victim in chapter 2. In his innocuous first exchange with Rocha, he fails to notice how the ranch-owner, sitting like a comic-book villain amidst the shadows, blindly ascribing him a character. It is clear that Rocha has been filling in the outlines of their persona all along. And the creepy questions return to remind us that Rocha consciously believes he has the Americans figured out and maybe unconsciously their fates as well Part 1: Pages 153-217 Chapter 3 In chapter 3 the characters lose their innocence by encountering violence and bloodshed. As the most fundamental trial of their souls John and Rawlin?s characters must cling to their spirit when freedom, serenity, idealism is turned to fear, atrocity, and evil. This crisis is inevitable, But death is not. As we watch John and Rawlins crawl from terror and darkness, we see McCarthy's most valued theme illuminated which is ?the heart of a person, indeed the life of a person, is revealed not only in their search for peace and fulfillment, but also in their realization that both are fleeting and the understanding that neither are innate.? In a classic Western, the third part is usually has the climactic showdown between good and evil. Motivated by a tangible prize, this culminating battle ends with the hero displaying his wit, brawn, and tenacity and either destroying or banishing