Image by goinyk, via iStock.
by Sophia Samoilescu
In Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, the relationship between humans and non-human beings, specifically horses, demonstrates a meaningful, reciprocal connection that is more intimate than many human relationships in the novel. This is most evident in the main character, John Grady Cole, as the book follows his journey from Texas to Mexico and the various lessons, obstacles, and encounters that teach him about the genuine understanding shared between humans and horses, rather than between himself and other characters. Throughout the novel, the relationship between humans is often shaped by expectations, betrayal, and manipulation, whereas the relationship between John Grady and horses, specifically Redbo, is based on established trust and compassion. Horses, and the landscapes in which they roam, are also central to John Grady’s quest to find himself against a fading cowboy “way of life” and prompt a deeper examination of his own identity.
For Hayder Gebreen, the theme of John Grady’s developing identity is a major part of the novel and can be observed in the death of his grandfather and subsequent sale of the ranch, an event that catalyzes his changing sense of self, leaving him “confused due to the experiences that contradict with his beliefs,” driving him southward in search of a way of life that Texas can no longer offer (Gebreen91). Gebreen primarily focuses on John Grady’s failures, such as the loss of the ranch, the end of his time in Mexico, and building stable relationships with the people surrounding him. But the analysis Gebreen fails to provide is where stability is found in the novel amidst John Grady’s failures. In comparison another author, Ashley Bourne, develops her begins by establishing a “deep connection between place and identity” in which each is formed through the other, allowing rercognition that when characters lose a meaningful place, they lose part of themselves in the process (Bourne 109). The framework provided by Bourne therefore suggests that the loss of the ranch is far more significant than it might appear, symbolizing the loss of John Grady’s sense of self as it was solidified as a cowboy. Making readers aware of this connection helps to demonstrate how horses are not just animals in his world, but function as the most stable part of an identity marked by loss and uncertainty. While Bourne’s argument focuses on physical terrain, the novel suggests that for John Grady, horses carry the same grounding function that the land once did. Throughout the novel, horses represent a constant stability in John Grady’s life when everything else is tainted with uncertainty and change, helping to connect and keep alive his identity as a cowboy.
It is clear throughout the novel that McCarthy writes engagingly about horses and John Grady, particularly through the language he uses to describe their connection and John Grady’s perception of these majestic beings. The cowboy has a way with horses that is described as natural from the beginning of the text, allowing readers to interpret his instinctive nature with horses. Early in the text, John Grady and his father rode together one last time, and the young cowboy is described riding a horse “as if he’d been born to it, which he was but as if he were begot by malice or mischance into some queer land where horses never were he would have found them anyway” (23). McCarthy’s language describes the spiritual-like connection between John Grady and horses and how being a cowboy is part of his destined way of life. His instincts extend beyond his skills to something more fundamental about his character at the beginning of the novel when he finds the horse’s skull. McCarthy highlights what John Grady is drawn to in horses by writing, “what he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them,” and that his reverence would always belong to “the ardenhearted” (8). McCarthy explains that John Grady does not love horses instead of people, but rather, finds a quality in horses that is rare in humans: the intense warmth the author described as “ardenthearted.” This specific moment early in the book signals events to come, as John Grady will struggle with his human relationships and interactions as they are defined by betrayal and dishonesty. Gebreen argues that John Grady “refuses to abandon his cowboy self-identity” even as the world around him changes, and it is clear from these early passages in the novel that horses are not subordinate to his cowboy identity but the foundation of it (91). For John Grady, being a cowboy is interlinked with his relationship with horses, as they represent both the life that he wishes to preserve and the expression of who he is. As the novel progresses, everything around him begins to disappear, and horses become the most important part connecting John Grady to his sense of self, making their role more significant with each loss he experiences.
As noted above, the loss of the family ranch in Texas is far more significant than simply establishing the context behind John Grady’s journey. Having established with Bourne the connection between place and identity, it is clear that once the ranch is lost, John Grady is not only physically displaced but missing the place where his cowboy identity was grounded and given meaning. Bourne observes that McCarthy’s protagonists long for a “sense of rootedness in the landscape that seemingly equates with their deep desire for a stable, knowable identity,” and when that rootedness is taken away, they are left feeling out of place (113). Evidently, horses take on a significance far beyond their practical role in John Grady’s life that is better understood with the context established by Bourne regarding the relationship between landscape and identity. At the La Purísima ranch, for example, McCarthy writes that John Grady’s “thoughts were of horses and of the open country and of horses. Horses still wild on the mesa who’d never seen a man afoot and who knew nothing of him or his life yet in whose souls he would come to reside forever” (117-18). The novel suggests that in John Grady’s mind, the landscape and horses are interconnected, not thinking of each separately but rather both at the same time. While Bourne focuses primarily on the terrain, the novel suggests horses function similarly to the land, grounding John Grady, a connection made possible through Bourne’s interpretation but not established by her. In contrast to every place where John Grady feels connected, his place alongside or riding horses remains constant for most of the book as the one part of himself connecting to his cowboy identity. McCarthy confirms this later in the novel when John Grady dreams that “the order in the horse’s heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no rain could erase it”, suggesting that horses possess a kind of inner stability that humans lack (280). Unlike the human connections in the story, which are formed by betrayal and conflict, the horse’s nature is unchanging and cannot be “erased”, supporting the claim that John Grady experiences a greater sense of trust and understanding in his connections with horses than with characters in the text. The horse’s heart functions as the one place in the novel that cannot be sold, closed off, or taken from John Grady the way every other meaningful place has been. Bourne’s argument suggests the loss of place as a loss of identity, and McCarthy confirms the claim through the depiction of John Grady as someone who has found a place where loss cannot interfere.
This theme is developed further when John Grady arrives in Mexico at The Hacienda de Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción where, working under Don Hector, he rapidly proves himself an exceptional horseman after he and his companion Rawlins break sixteen horses in three days. Gebreen argues that these moments in the book are central to the boy’s journey, not incidentally written by the author, as we can see through the progression of the story when John Grady seizes his opportunity to work with horses on the ranch in Mexico as a way of continuing to establish “his identity as a cowboy” (95). Gebreen suggests that John Grady travels to Mexico because he believes it is a place where the cowboy way of life still exists, and the acts of horse-breaking on the ranch are in his efforts to prove himself and establish himself as a cowboy in a new place (94). During his time of training the wild horses, McCarthy’s use of descriptive language illustrates the patience and mutual trust between John Grady and the horses rather than the use of force or control. “He could smell the fear and cupped his hand over the horse’s eyes and stroked them and he did not stop talking to the horse at all, speaking in a low steady voice and telling it all that he intended to do and cupping the animal’s eyes and stroking the terror out.” (104). The connection between John Grady and horses, furthermore, extends beyond the shared trust and skill, also demonstrating a kind of spiritual understanding. John Grady establishes trust with the horse by communicating his actions directly, making the latter an equal who understands his intentions. While Gebreen’s framework focuses on John Grady’s failure to construct a stable identity through the human world around him, it is in these moments with horses that his identity feels most intact as a result of the collapsing structures surrounding him, specifically family and land (91).
It is not possible to fully explore John Grady’s identity without discussion of his horse Redbo, who accompanies him from Texas to Mexico and serves as the living connection to all things that define the fading cowboy aesthetic. It will be recalled that Gebreen identifies the loss of the ranch and the death of John Grady’s grandfather as the beginning of the latter’s crisis of identity, the moment where the life he was raised for in Texas ceased to exist(91). Following these events, sixteen-year-old John Grady and his friend Lacey Rawlins leave home on horseback, heading for the Mexican border, and are joined early on by a younger boy named Jimmy Blevins. The horse Redbo is alongside John Grady and the other boys for the entire journey until John Grady and Rawlins are arrested, and Blevins has been executed. Redbo is more than just John Grady’s horse, but the remainder of all that he has left behind, carrying both the literal and figurative weight of John Grady’s indeterminate journey and forming a reminder of everything left behind, such as the ranch, the life he was meant for, and the cowboy identityTexas could no longer sustain. Retrieving his horse in Encantada after being released, John Grady called to Redbo and, when it came, “the horse pushed his nose and forehead against John Grady’s chest and John Grady spoke to him and he whinnied and turned and went trotting towards the sunlight in the door without bridle or halter.” (263). This detail is steeped in the powerful symbolism of John Grady as a rider without bridle or halter suggesting a unity between horse and bareback rider that both bridges the distance between each, and speaks to their enormous mutual trust and connection, given the inherent difficulty of riding without a saddle or harness. Redbo follows John Grady not out of force but out of recognition and trust for his rider, an absent element in many of the human-to-human relationships throughout the novel. Gebreen’s account of John Grady’s identity crisis captures what is lost throughout the novel, whereas the reunion with Redbo speaks to something his framework cannot reach, a bond that survives all the hardships in the text. Where every human relationship in the novel is subject to the interference of external forces, the bond between John Grady and Redbo answers to nothing but the trust between them.
In contrast to the steadiness and trust built between the cowboy and horses in the book, John Grady’s relationships and interactions with other characters are defined by betrayal, disappointment, and outside interference. His most obvious relationship with Don Hector’s daughter Alejandra serves as one of the more devastating examples, as it begins genuinely and passionately before ending with the intervention of Dueña Alfonsa. The great aunt of Alejandra, Alfonsa, manipulates the relationship between the young pair in her efforts to protect the family’s social standing and Alejandra’s reputation. She tells John Grady after their game of chess that she wants him “to be considerate of a young girl’s reputation…This is another country. Here a woman’s reputation is all she has” (136). In sharing this with the young cowboy, Alfonsa represents ideas of societal expectations and demands in the novel, acting as a boundary or border that cannot be crossed should they pursue a relationship. Following John Grady’s imprisonment, Alfonsa pays for his and Rawlins release and later discovers upon his journey back to Don Hector’s ranch that he was released on the condition that Alejandra promised to never see him again. Alejandra is also manipulated by her great aunt and tells her father about her and John Grady’s secret love, eventually leading to Don Hector having both John Grady and Rawlins arrested. On multiple fronts, John Grady has been betrayed, as demonstrated through the interference and manipulation of other characters despite being a loyal and exceptional cowboy. Towards the end of the novel, when Alejandra and John Grady meet for the last time in Zacatecas, Bourne reminds us that the city is itself a site of historical conflict as it is the location of Alejandra’s grandfather’s death in a clash between revolutionaries and militia, meaning even the setting of their farewell carries the weight of the social and historical forces that make their relationship impossible (111-12). The final meeting place for John Grady and Alejandra carries the memory of the violence and loss that occurred before, reinforcing Bourne’s argument that place and identity are inseparable from the various conflicts that have influenced them. Alejandra’s refusal to go with John Grady to America is not intentionally cruel, but rather a decision based on the social forces that have constrained her throughout the novel, nevertheless devastating the cowboy. Gebreen further argues that John Grady’s relationship with Alejandra represents a conflict of national and cultural forces, observing that his inability to understand the cultural differences between the two countries is ultimately what costs him the relationship (95). The contrast between societal and familial obligations versus the unwavering trust shared between John Grady and horses is made explicit when one of the Mexican ranchers, Luis, tells him that “among men there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men can be understood at all was probably an illusion.” (111). Despite sharing this opinion earlier in the novel, McCarthy ensures that the full weight of this quote is felt most deeply after John Grady has lived through the betrayals and losses that will follow. By the end of the story it is clear John Grady lacks the trust, comfort, and stability in his human relationships that are present in every interaction he has with horses.
Ultimately, All the Pretty Horses presents the relationship between humans and non-human beings as more authentic and based on shared trust than many of the human relationships John Grady forms. His natural ability to communicate with horses, the role they play in shaping his identity, and the contrast with his failed human relationships all demonstrate the depth of a bond that no external force manages to break. McCarthy concludes the novel with John Grady’s return to Texas without any kind of faith in those he is surrounded by or a sense of belonging, as he returns “alone,” continuing on his journey throughout the desert with Redbo. McCarthy’s writing invites us to recognize that in a world marked by change, conflict, and betrayal, the relationship between human and animal provides a unique feeling of mutual trust and understanding. Gebreen’s account of the cowboy’s identity crisis captures instances where John Grady is tested but does not highlight the consistent part of his life that persists among his losses. Bourne on the other hand reveals the connection between place and identity for John Grady, where being with horses remains the one constant space where his cowboy identity still exists. What neither framework fully develops is how the novel placesits faith almost entirely in the bond between horse and human as the truest form of connection available to John Grady. Upon his return to Texas, McCarthy describes John Grady riding up “onto Texas soil pale and shivering…bawling softly at the horses and he thought about his father who was dead in that country” (286). The landscape he returns to is not the one he left at the beginning, as it reflects only loss and displacement for John Grady, confirming what Bourneargues throughout her essay regarding the cowboy’s identity in the place he no longer belongs to. He has lost the ranch, his father, Alejandra, and the Mexico that briefly seemed to offer what Texas could no longer provide, returning to a landscape that no longer reflects his identity. The final image McCarthy leaves readers with is of horse and rider disappearing together into an uncertain future, “passed and paled into the darkening land, the world to come” (302). The only constant in the young cowboy’s life is the horse that remains beside him from his journey from Texas to Mexico and back, before continuing together into the vast distance.
Works Cited
Bourne, Ashley. “‘Plenty of Signs and Wonders to Make a Landscape’: Space, Place, and Identity in Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy.” Western American Literature 44, no. 2 (June 2009): 109–26. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43022719
Gebreen, Hayder A. K. “Identity Crisis in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies, journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/article/view/2173
McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. First Vintage International Edition, 1993.