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Foreshadowing
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
All the Pretty Horses is a Western novel written by Cormac McCarthy. It is the first book in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, which (as its name suggests) follows cowboys in the region around the Mexico-United States border. It was written for a popular audience and was also McCarthy's first widely successful novel. While it functions well as a standalone work, McCarthy later returns to John Grady Cole (the novel's protagonist) in Cities of the Plain, the final installment of the trilogy.
The novel has elements of a romance novel, both stylistically and structurally. Romantic love for Alejandra is a driving force for many of John Grady’s actions, and Alfonsa's lessons consider the best way to mediate relationship between romantic love and family. While McCarthy may have ended the novel on a practical level when the boys were released from prison, the story continues because the romantic conflict had not been resolved. Much like the structure of a medieval romance, the end of novel sees John Grady returning to his hometown as a changed man. This old structure of circular storytelling helps to highlight the ways in which John Grady's journeys in Mexico have changed him and how he has come of age, ready to face the challenges of adulthood.
Beyond its interest in romantic love, the book is also stylistically Romantic (that is, reminiscent of works in the Romantic literary movement). Despite the novel's overall minimalism and terseness, it focuses heavily on Romantic ideals like heroism, beauty, and subjective, emotional experience. John Grady feels a deep emotional connection to horses, for instance, and the book frequently meditates on the sublime beauty of nature.
Finally, All the Pretty Horses can be categorized as a Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, since it is centered on 16-year-old John Grady's maturation. The hardship, violence, and loss of innocence he experiences amid Mexico's rugged landscape force him to grow up from a boy to a young man. Over the course of the novel, John Grady learns that the world isn't always hospitable to Romantic ideals—often, it is uncaring and more aligned with the cold pragmatism and starkness that colors much of the novel's narration.
