Image by Frederic Remington.
by Danny Watts
What it means to be a man has meandered a path throughout time, changing and bending to its different contexts. Yearning to be seen as a man, the adolescent male searches for recognition, he seeks to cross the bridge from boyhood into manhood. In his 1992 novel All The Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy writes of three young men and their attempts to journey from boys to men. The desolate and sparse western country unravels in front of the trio, and in attempts to make a claim to their manhood they become engulfed by the dark realities of the ‘wild-west’. In the work, masculinity culminates into many unique power relationships shaped by violence. Violence is a law of power, a law upheld by every man they encounter, looming over every thought, action, and decision. In order to achieve their status as men there comes a price tag of power. In All The Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy uses symbols to sketch the fluid concept of masculinity through the experiences of John Grady Cole, Rawlins, and Blevins, examining how relationships of power frame manhood as violence, in addition to the internal struggles the characters have with expectations of masculinity.
In McCarthy’s literary world, violence is a necessity throughout many of his works, serving as not only a stylistic choice but a major framing mechanism for his novels. All The Pretty Horses is no different. Throughout the boys’ adventures, violence takes form as an inescapable condition of manhood. John Grady’s father, a seasoned war veteran, is an important cog in the development of his son’s view of masculinity. “His father stubbed out his cigarette and picked up his fork and stabbed at the pie with it” (McCarthy 25). McCarthy uses this subtle, yet important, diction of stabbing, the act of thrusting with intent to harm, in order to demonstrate the nuances in the communication of the expectations of a man. The father’s expression of power over the pie sets the standard of masculine expressions. Father figures are key in outlining social expectations of young men and in John Grady’s case his father’s displays of power outlines his internal definition of manhood, correlating masculinity with power. There is a constant struggle between the boy and man, a struggle of recognition, with the boy attempting to be perceived as masculine. Rawlins and John Grady fall victim to this desire for approval and they lie in order to achieve respect. “We’re runnin from the law, Rawlins said. The Mexican looked them over. We robbed a bank. He stood looking at the horses. You aint robbed no bank” (34). This specific lie is indicative of their immaturity, as its wild nature is distinctly childish and unbelievable, reminiscent of the stories they’ve most likely heard of cowboys or other prominent masculine figures. Throughout their journey, each boy seeks the confirmation of other men in their manhood. “You reckon he thinks we’re desperados?” (55). Desperately , they attempt to convey masculinity, and the only way they know how is through grasping at power. The violently powerful status as a desperado, a reckless criminal, are what the boys are intending to appear as. To John Grady and Rawlins, the most manly reputation one can have is that of a violent criminal, illustrating their view on the importance of power, its relations to violence, and the ultimate combination of the two in order to achieve the status and recognition of a man.
In The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (1976), French philosopher Michel Foucault asserts that the ultimate power is murder. That is, the ability to take another’s life and express violence is the highest power of all. Foucault continues, “One had the right to kill those who represented a kind of biological danger to others. One might say that the ancient right to take life or let live was replaced by a power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (Foucault 138). In All The Pretty Horses, the boys’ forced immersion and complete subjection to violence is illustrative of Foucault’s proposed idea. Power, according to Foucault, now involves managing life ‘to the point of death’, with an example of this being within the prison where every action carries the weight of potential death. “Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone” (McCarthy 137). Rawlins and John Grady are no sovereigns, instead they wage wars of violence and bloodletting in order to survive, illustrating the proposed shift in violence and its purpose by Foucault. The boys adopt a Foucaultian ideology, using their masculinity in attempts to alter the power imbalance, using threats of death to both gain power and maintain their livelihood. Their capacity for violence is not a masculine triumph, but rather a necessity forced onto them in order to foster life. To McCarthy, death is symbolic, taking form as a signifier of masculine power; it shapes the actions and journey of John Grady.
The gun is a symbolically masculine object, with it being an almost substitute for what French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan terms the phallus, in McCarthy’s work. Lacanian theory describes such a concept as essential to achieving manhood, presenting the castration complex, referring to the fear of loss of the penis, as a driving force in shaping in defining masculinity. “The installation is the subject of an unconscious position without which he would be unable to identify himself with the ideal type of his sex” (Lacan 312). The fear of castration, according to Lacan, drives young boys to conform and internalize a masculine image. The idealized man is imprinted onto the young boys, and their journeys are being shaped by their internal definitions of manhood. Rawlins, John Grady, and Blevins are not on a heroic journey to become men, they are instead journeying out of fear of not becoming men. With the gun acting as a pseudo-phallus, McCarthy places heavy emphasis on both their inability to operate the weapons and their seeming necessity to John Grady and Rawlins. “Rawlins stepped down and slid his little 25-20 carbine out of the bootleg scabbard he carried it in and walked out along the ridge. John Grady heard him shoot. In a little while he came back with a rabbit and he reupholstered the carbine and took out his knife and walked off a ways and squatted and gutted the rabbit” (McCarthy 35). The carbine is an extension of the phallus, a direct objectification of manhood. In this passage Rawlins ritualistically disassembles the rabbit, and in doing so, expresses his masculinity. Rawlins is not simply surviving in the wild, but achieving the idealized version of masculinity through the gun. By using the carbine, Rawlins claims masculinity in a performance of violence in an attempt to prove that he is not deserving of castration. Through understanding the castration complex by way of Lacanian theory, the symbol of the gun and its relation to masculinity becomes clear. The gun, and its use, becomes a stand-in for an expression of masculinity. The gun is symbolically masculine not only for its ability to express power, but in addition, without it the boys do not feel to truly be men.
Power is an inescapable grim truth of manhood, and Rawlins and John Grady fully expect to encounter violence in one form or another. Guns are a vehicle for violence, an unequivocal weapon, versatile and expressional in bloodletting; it becomes essential for the young men’s journey. “What did you bring to shoot? Said Rawlins. Just Grandad’s old thumb-buster. Can you hit anything with it? No” (31). John Grady Cole is unable to operate the old thumb-buster, proving that he chooses to bring the gun, not out of desire, but rather seeming necessity. Upon meeting Blevins they begin to question his masculinity, posing him a test of violence. “You throw your pocketbook up in the air and I’ll put a hole in it, he said… He pitched it up underhanded… Then he shot. The billfold jerked sideways off across the landscape” (48). Blevins had passed, he was fluent in the language of violence, thus proving his worth as a man.
Blevins, despite his proven masculine value, is still incredibly naive, leading to the absolution of his manhood and life. A thunderstorm strikes pure fear into Blevins, who’s childish nature elicits a rash response. “Where’s your clothes at? I took em off” (70). This behaviour is not what one would expect of a rugged outlaw, one who supposedly only fears god. Powerless to nature, it becomes clear that Blevins is not a powerful figure, but rather masquerading as powerful due to his associations of power and masculinity. McCarthy uses Blevins’s actions to reinstate the fact that these boys are still in fact boys donning the hats of men. Rawlins comments to Blevins to quit his journey to manhood. “You better see if you can trade that pistol for some clothes and a bus ticket back to wherever it is you come from” (74). This is not just a simple trade of items; it’s the call for the death of Blevins’s masculinity. The pistol, an essential to violence and with it masculinity, in trade for a bus home. Subject to this fate Blevins would be utterly powerless, quite literally being driven back to whence he came, unable to have true control. Blevins however does not give up, and continues to push forward in attempts to reclaim his lost power and masculinity. This push ultimately culminates into violence. His violent outbursts lead to his own killing. The endless pursuit of masculinity and reclaiming what was lost leads to him killing three men, Blevins desperately attempts to validate himself as a man and seals his own fate. His youth and eagerness to ascend to a powerful man certifies his damnation. “[Blevins] don’t have no feathers” (167). McCarthy intentionally states Blevin’s lack of ‘feathers’, or pubic hair, as a stark reminder of his youth. Blevins is still a young boy full of ambition and dreams who has been led astray by the ideals of masculinity to resort to a life of violence. His belief that masculinity is earned through brute force blinds him to reality.
Being shot at is Rawlins and John Grady’s first encounter with violence: “there were three pistol shots from somewhere in the dark all evenly spaced that went pop pop pop” (83). The boys had been baptised in violence, beginning their ascension to manhood. This encounter marks a turning point for both, stripping away their prior innocence and awakening them to the harsh reality that lay ahead in the frontier. This passage specifically illustrates the mechanical and cold nature of violence. The “evenly spaced bullets” are an indiscriminately inhuman objectification of violence (83). Similarly to the rhythm and mechanical manner in which Blevins is murdered, “[t]hey caint just walk him out there and shoot him, he said. Hell fire. Just walk him out there and shoot him. John grady looked at him. As he did so the pistol shot came from beyond the ebony trees. Not loud. Just a flat sort of pop. Then another” (178). The word ‘pop’ calls back to this previous moment, the actualization of needless violence.
This indiscriminate violence shadows the boys’ journey. During their captivity under the captain, a symbol of power and masculinity, at least by title, they are subject to the inevitable violence of manhood. The captain strips Rawlins of his masculinity through violence, “Put down your pants. What the hell for?… The guard stepped forward and took a leather sap from his rear pocket and struck Rawlins across the back of the head with it. The room Rawlins was in lit up all white and his knees buckled and he reached about him in the air” (163). Rawlins is beaten to submission; he is beaten out of his masculinity by the captain. A rude awakening for Rawlins to the innate power relations of masculinity, and how quickly one’s masculinity can be taken away. “Turn around. Put down your pants. He turned around and unbuckled his belt and pushed his trousers down” (163). Rawlins’ s stripping and sexual assault is a physical emasculation, stripping him of his clothes, his power, and his dignity. McCarthy does not want the reader to understand masculinity as just a capacity for violence, but also the emotional meaning contrived from manhood. In addition, masculinity’s many forms of expression are similar to those of power. The captain’s actions are not simply violent, they are a means to establish power. Through the captain, McCarthy highlights the impactful nature of power relations in every aspect of masculinity. Pride, dignity, and image are essential in the formation of a man’s persona and through the captain’s obliteration of Rawlins’s masculinity McCarthy reveals how the emotional is an extension of violence, and the deeply rooted ties between power and masculinity. The captain’s masculinity and power comes in his violence, his will is realized due to the immense ease at which he is able to facilitate violence.
The captain, however, is not representative of idealized masculinity. McCarthy portrays him as flamboyant, juxtaposing the boys’ notions of masculinity as silent and stoic. In the Mexican frontier, in order to survive a man must present himself as powerful. The captain contrasts the cultural backdrop of his surroundings, an intentional choice by McCarthy in order to emphasize the indiscriminatory reach of power relations. “At a gray metal desk in one corner sat a stout man likewise in a khaki uniform who wore about his neck a scarf of yellow silk.” (157) The bright yellow of the captain’s silk scarf contrasts sharply with his uniform. A traditionally masculine attire of a uniform is seemingly out of place on the captain, a display of femininity on such a powerful character. McCarthy intentionally highlights the femininity of the captain to challenge the ideas within the boys, and readers, of the relation between portrayed masculinity and power. The scarf is more than a simple fashion statement, it is a symbol for the feminine side of violence and power. Despite the captain’s appearance, he is brutal and violent, convoluting the pre-established ideas of violence and its seemingly inherent masculinity.
The captain is similar to the boys in ways they may not realize. Like the boys, he is in search of approval and a masculine appearance. “[The captain] leaned back in the chair and sat with his arm upright and the burning cigarette a few inches from his ear in a posture that seemed alien to him. As if perhaps he’d admired it somewhere in others” (167). The parroting of the captain, and his observable discomfort in doing so, is illustrative of the desire to conform. Similar to the young boys the captain attempts to achieve a masculine persona, but for the captain it seems he will never truly ‘fit’ due to his innate femininity. McCarthy’s diction is indicative of this natural femininity and the captain’s desire for masculinity. ‘Alien’ reveals a disconnect between his performance, his attire, posture, and behavior, and his real self. The captain ‘admires’ masculinity, he has an internal appreciation from masculinity, however, he is unable to achieve this. The captain resorts to outbursts of violence, utilizing his power, in attempts to achieve his masculine status. Revealing the complicated relationship of power and masculinity, the captain serves as an exploration of the complexity of masculinity with McCarthy portraying him as a man who does not fully embody masculine traits, but rather uses power as a replacement.
Violence has become a necessity for the boys. To maintain safety Rawlins and John Grady must put their violence, and with it masculinity, on full display in order to achieve power. In prison this is amplified “[u]nderpinning all of it like the fiscal standard in commercial societies lay a bedrock of depravity and violence where in an egalitarian absolute every man was judged by a single standard and that was his readiness to kill” (182). McCarthy purposefully uses a prison, something in which one is held against their will, as a symbol for inescapability of masculinity and power. In prison the boys are forced to confront the dark cruelty of violence. Each man is judged by their capacity for violence, a test of their manhood. “We think we’re a couple of pretty tough cowboys, said Rawlins. Yeah. Maybe. They could kill us at any time. Yeah. I know” (186). The two have interpreted their violence as heroic, an act that has solidified their status as cowboys, as men. However, McCarthy has positioned the boys in a power relationship in which they must fight for survival. Violence has now become a requirement for existence. Their personal power imbalance, threat of death and being killed, is the driver of their heroic battles, not their self-believed inherent masculinity.
Returning to Foucault’s initial argument, killing another is the ultimate expression of violence, power, and masculinity. McCarthy presents murder as a right of passage, one that separates boys from men. John Grady murders a young boy, one McCarthy describes as a “cuchillero” (200). This diction is important, as John Grady fights no ordinary man but one of honour, a brawler and a fighter, the kill is a transition into the world of violent and powerful men. “From the red boutonniere blossoming on the left pocket of [the cuchillero’s] blue workshirt there spurted a thin fan of bright arterial blood” (201). The blossoming flower of the cuchillero, his life, dreams, goals, are punctured by John Grady’s knife. McCarthy intentionally chooses a stabbing in this instance to illustrate the true personal nature of violence. Stabbing is different from the act of shooting, as the murderer must be in direct physical contact with the victim. He must feel the knife enter the victim, his hot breath turning cold, and just like a prison there is no escaping the violence. The boutonniere also serves a symbolic purpose, usually associated with a rite of passage such as a wedding; it signifies a pivotal shift in John Grady’s journey. John Grady is now married to violence, eternally bound to carry the ramifications of his actions. “Blood sloshed in his boots” (201). Boots are essential to a cowboy, they are an extension of his masculinity, and they have been flooded with blood. John Grady burdens the weight of his masculinity, forged in fire of battle, with him forever. Enacting the ultimate power of murder has a punishment of eternal burden. “His boots left wet tracks of blood in the dry floor of the yard” (202). His masculinity is stained, and it will follow him forever, leaving behind a trail of violence.
John Grady is fluent in the language of violence, and now, forged in blood, it is time for him to exercise his newfound power in order to uphold his status as a man. Seeking retribution, and his horse, John Grady returns to where Rawlins was stripped of his manhood, the captain’s office. McCarthy shapes John Grady to believe that a violent reshuffling of power is the only solution and that, after the expression of the ultimate power, he is man enough to take matters into his own hands. This newfound masculinity enables John Grady to command his fate. John Grady understands violence, he understands the necessity of power: “John Grady stood. He cocked the pistol. The click of the sear and the click of the cylinderhand falling into place were sharp and clear in the morning silence” (258). Once again, McCarthy returns to the mechanical and sadistic nature of the gun, the lackadaisical violence of a firearm. John Grady, now a master of violence, fights for control, for true manhood: “When the charro looked up into the pistolbarrel John Grady could see the gears meshing in his head and everything turning and falling into place” (260). John Grady, throughout his travels has grown to understand power, now he witnesses a conversation of violence taking place in front of his very eyes, and he understands. “Then he stepped through the door and put the barrel of the revolver between the eyes of the man crouched there. The man had been holding the rifle at his waist and he dropped it in the dirt…Almost instantly John Grady’s legs were slammed from under him and he went down… He knew he’d been shot” (264-265). As John Grady finally demonstrates his dominance, his masculinity, McCarthy quite literally rips it from beneath him, displaying once again the ebbs and flows of power relations. John Grady has let his masculine ego get a hold of him, his downfall is his carelessness. John Grady has been given an illusion of power, an illusion of masculinity.
This constant pendulum of power is present in Foucault’s ideology. “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere” (93 Foucault). Power relationships are more complicated than one would imagine according to Foucault, due to their omnipresence everything involves a power struggle, thus making it ever changing. John Grady’s experience with the captain elaborates on this idea, showing that eventually power will shift due to its constant availability to be impacted. The captain’s once seemingly unchallenged power and masculinity has now been flipped on its head. In response to his wounds John Grady flees, however the bullet hole remains. “He dragged the pistol from the coals… And jammed the red hot barrel ash and all down into the hole in his leg” (274). McCarthy reinforces the inescapability of violence, as the pistol being both a vehicle for death and healing. By ironically juxtaposing a tool for harm as something with a property to help and heal, he also frames masculinity in this context. To elaborate, masculinity can be both destructive, it’s seeming inherent violence destroys those around it, but also it can prosper with the right intention. Masculinity, according to McCarthy, is similar to that of a gun, a double-edged sword that can both harm and aid. When wielded with purpose under the right context, masculinity can become a tool for survival, resilience and justice. However, when used for power only violence ensues.
“The desert he rode was red and red the dust he raised… In the evening a wind came up and reddened all the sky before him… He rode with the sun coppering his face… Rider and horse passed on and their long shadows passed in tandem like the shadow of a single being. Passed and paled into the darkening land, the world to come” (302). All The Pretty Horses ends on a note of completion, rather than closure. John Grady has come to the end of his trials as a man, the red blood staining him permanently, he has completed the challenge of violence. McCarthy’s final paragraph is telling of the journey, the passage, of John Grady’s masculinity. The long shadow of his past trials will continue to haunt him, looming forever unable to shake. Blood spilled hues his manhood red. The world to come being that of a man, man’s world, at the foot of John Grady, yet McCarthy leaves room for uncertainty, does he continue down the road of violence? Or will he change his ways?
Masculinity is not simple, and McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses addresses the topic as one full of complexity and nuance. The direct linkage between masculinity and power is interwoven delicately by both society and men. McCarthy explores masculinity through the journey of three boys and their attempts to achieve the societal masculine standard. The boys link expressions of violence, brutality and power to manhood. Power, as John Grady believes, stems from masculinity, however he could not be further wrong, as McCarthy, through the symbols of the captain’s scarf, illustrates that power enables masculinity. Guns, a physical representation of power, are a looming threat for each character, the mechanical and inhuman violence plagues the boys. Violence becomes essential to survival, a practice taught by the world of man, which is then rewarded through being able to see another day. However, violence does not come without consequence, as Blevins is killed for his actions, and John Grady holds a heavy burden for life. Masculinity, McCarthy argues, is neither inherently evil nor good, but rather a force shaped and controlled by its usage. John Grady, bathed in the blood of consequence, paid the immeasurable price of manhood, forever to roam the red desert of power. A boy, loaded by the ammunition of power becomes a gun , the question is, do they have to shoot?
Works Cited
McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. Vol. 1, the Border Trilogy. Vintage Books, 1993.
Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Routledge, 2020.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Volume I. Pantheon Books, 1978.