All the Pretty Horses: the Imagery of Blood

...

Angelo, the reader is left not knowing the fate of John Grady riding off into the sunset. McCarthy explains that John Grady is in the desert on horseback surrounded by “the red dust he (was) raised, the small dust that powdered the legs of the horse he rode, the horse he led.” (page 302) In like manner, the landscape is described only as the color red with a “bloodred sunset” and “bloodred dust”. The display of the color red and blood strategically placed throughout the novel created a sense of helplessness for both the reader and the characters. As a reader, the use of blood foreshadowed tragic events every character would face such as the end of the affair with Alejandra and the loss of emotion John Grady once had when he is shot. As a character, the sign of blood indicated the end of an event such as John Grady ending his dream life in America and Mexico to travel to a new country in search of a new beginning.

In conclusion, Cormac McCarthy, author of All the Pretty Horses, revolved a modern-day Western novel solely around blood. Blood symbolically represents the cost of John Grady’s actions such as the forbidden love affair with Alejandra, killing a prisoner to save his life, and retrieving Blevin’s horse. Additionally, blood unifies the lives of men and the lives of horses when explaining John Grady’s love for horses stating “What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all of his fondness and all his learnings in life were for the ardenthearted and would always be so and never be otherwise.” (page 6) Furthermore, the imagery of blood describing the landscape throughout the novel created a sense of helplessness for both the reader and the characters. For example, the quote “The bloodred dust blew down out of the sun. He touched the horse with his heels and rode on. He rode with the sun copper inventories his face and the red wind blowing out if the west across the evening land…” (page 302), demonstrated the sign of blood as a new beginning of life for John Grady in another country. All in all, blood played a tremendous role in both the character’s and reader’s understanding of the novel and should not be overlooked when analyzing the novel.

Works Cited

McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print