Comfort In Cormac Mccarthy's All The Pretty Horses

The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old cowboy who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in San Angelo, Texas. The boy was raised for a significant part of his youth, perhaps 15 of his 16 years, by a family of Mexican origin who worked on the ranch; he is a native speaker of Spanish and English.[2] The story begins in 1949, soon after the death of John Grady's grandfather when Grady learns the ranch is to be sold. Faced with the prospect of moving into town, Grady instead chooses to leave and persuades his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to accompany him. Traveling by horseback, the pair travels southward into Mexico, where they hope to find work as cowboys.

“You remember what you want to forget and you forget what you want to remember,” (McCarthy 12). With most aspects of life, the horrendous moments are the times that no one can erase. This applied to The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Towards the end of the novel when the son loses his father proves to be the most indelible moment with the assistance of the feelings experienced during that part. The son encounters a variety of emotions including loneliness, loss and hope. In enduring these complex emotions, this section was the most remarkable part.

When I stared at my father’s eyes I saw a man who felt hopeless. It was the first time I saw him cry. All our burdens were placed on him. He did not find support through Cambridge Public Housing. I watched my father’s hopelessness turn to desperation.

This statement is ironic because in general, people especially feel safe at home, where one often doesn’t feel lonely, however the narrator feels quite the

We can only think that this is how Chris felt when he “walked into the wild” (Krakauer 69). Instead of the nonsense of everyday life, Jon let himself focus on one goal: survival. Both Chris and Jon packed up and left a comfortable life to seek adventure just beyond their reach. They both had issues with their fathers. The difference between their stories is that Jon returned to his life, whereas Chris lost his.

While the child was feeling down; instead of picking her son up, the mother scolds her child “[reminding] him, once again, not to shout out in public. And never to speak with his mouth full” and his sister reminds him that, “Papa’s gone” (Otsuka 50). For one of the few emotional outbursts in the novel, there is no consolation for the distressed child. There is only condemnation of his actions and a reminder of not only of how he should act but also of the very topic that is distressing him, his missing father. It is clear that it did not matter what age an individual was, it was expected that the child would remain silent and distant from

In “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson, John Ames III is the 3rd minister in a small town in Iowa. He is dying and he is aware that he is leaving his wife and children with nothing except books of his work. Ames sole purpose of the novel was to write to his son so that he would understand his family's history and along that get to know his father that most likely his son will have no recollection of his father. Ames started writing his book when he was eight years before his death which gave give a good time to write his thoughts, his regrets, his sad life, and the joy of having his son but, to not be able to be part of his life. He has never truly experienced a happy life and has lived in solitary for 40 years after the death of his sweetheart Louise and his first born son who died after birth.

Nothing can really gets in this man’s way. As mentioned by Sanderson, the man has territorial control, by making everyone signing a contract which if broken, can result in Dunson shooting them down, as seen later on in the movie. Sanderson’s article also focus on how John Wayne’s actual age shaped the persona for the character and the masculinity of Dunson. Wayne has all the scars of the middle-age man and the persona has all the masculinity of a ‘cowboy’ that has been living way too long in a Western all-male group that he has rendered himself incapable of merging back into society, thus the failure in portraying any feminity at all throughout Red River. All in all, Red River is definitely an interesting display of gender.

Meanwhile the children were naive, everything that their father would say and do they believed. The narrator and his brothers’ were filled with preconceived thoughts of their father and their family’s relationship dynamics. Their father’s abusive actions were not only towards their mother, but also directed towards them. As a child, this could have clogged up their definition of

From beginning to end, the son calls his father “Baba” to show his affection and admiration. Despite the father’s inability to come up with a new story, the son still looks up to him. This affectionate term also contrasts with the father’s vision of the “boy packing his shirts [and] looking for his keys,” which accentuates the undying love between the father and son (15 & 16) . The father’s emotional “screams” also emphasize his fear of disappointing the son he loves so much (17). Despite the father’s agonizing visions, the son remains patient and continues to ask for a story, and their relationship remains “emotional” and “earthly”--nothing has changed (20-21).

There is no comparison to the amount of pain a parent endures when they outlive their child. A tale of woe is what resides after such incident. An endless cycle of grief is exemplified in the short story “Night” by Bret Lott. The way the father in the story pays meticulous attention to detail makes the audience believe that he does not want to forget the existence of his child. He is merely in denial.

People walked around with Stetson’s on their heads, revolvers in their belts, and said “partner” to everyone. All the pretty Horses starts us off in the year 1948, therefore, this “Cowboy” time in America’s history takes place about a century before John Grady was born. This observation houses the blunt fact that the real Cowboy is gone during John Grady’s time, and this is why he goes to Mexico: to find his Cowboy dream. John Grady could not follow his dream in the U.S., there is electricity powering everything, cars going everywhere, and the cowboys were now drunk gamblers like his father. Along with these things, his family ranch was being given away, so there was no solace for John Grady, no place for him to escape the modern world.

“My father, with tears in his eyes, tried to smile as one friend after another grasped his hand in a last farewell. Mama was overcome with grief. At last we were all in the wagons. The drivers cracked their whips. The oxen moved slowly forward and the long journey had begun.”

It is first and foremost the grief of one person over the death of his son. Here the author accepts that he has grief because he has loved his son and that son is no more. As much he loved his son, so much is his grief. When we go through this book keeping in mind Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief, we find that the development of the thoughts of the author is also almost the same.

The father’s wife had recently died, leaving him with the boy to take care of with the only mindset of keeping him alive, doing anything for their survival. This affected the father in a big way, leaving him with little hope and hardly any reason to stay alive, but the boy was “his warrant” (McCarthy 5) , his only reason for life. The boy starts out very scared and weak, always wanting to hide behind his father, knowing that one day he will die. The boy matures with every event that happens, and he maintains to have hope throughout most of them. “The man fell back instantly and lay with blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead.