...death without blood, and solitary heroic cowboys vanquishing ultimately cowardly villains--in an attempt to recover the true history of the American West, to remove the romantic and heroic veneer from a past of violence and prejudice, of dreams shattered as much as hopes fulfilled. Cormac McCarthy's novel All the Pretty Horses concerns itself with the meeting place between realism and romanticism. All the Pretty Horses is set in 1949 and 1950. The opening of the novel shows John Grady Cole, a sixteen-year-old Texan who wants badly to be a cowboy, at the funeral of his grandfather. The driving economic force in Texas, it becomes clear to John Grady, is oil rather than cattle: after the funeral, John Grady's mother will sell the ranch the grandfather owned, and on which John Grady was raised. It is a ranch built by John Grady's great-grandfather in the formative years of the cowboy culture, the years immediately after the Civil War, and its passing out of the family is a symbol of the passing of the old West, the...
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...can be used to change the world. In the novels, All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and The Counselor, Cormac McCarthy plots adventures that his characters mature from their experience and knowledge to support themselves and change their lives. In the book All The Pretty Horses, John Grady Cole starts out in the novel burying his grandfather. He lost everything. John’s mother is selling the ranch he grew up in and he is stuck with the choice of moving...
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...in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." The idea behind this creation of the American dream has ingrained itself into the ethos of America’s identity, and it is an idea that can be frequently found swimming around in the country’s literature. However, the distance between that often romanticized dream and the reality of life for some people living in America can become nightmarish. The conflict that builds within the presence of that gap is a topic that is both explored and critiqued in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. Both novels feature young protagonists that “head west” in hopes of discovering some type of romanticized “otherness” that may exist in a world outside of their own. In a well-crafted essay, explore how one of these novels critiques the ideals of an American dream through travel, the creation of conflict, and/or the maturation of the...
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...The Disadvantages of Mexico’s Economy The United States of America has many advantages such as natural resources, a stable government, and advanced technology. Its southern neighbor, Mexico, has not had as much luck. Mexico’s unfortunate terrain and unstable government has hindered its ability to gain any significant amount of wealth as a nation. In his novel, All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy shows us the difference in the wealth of these two nations through the travels of John Grady Cole and Lacy Rawlins. McCarthy gives readers an example of Mexico’s economic status when he writes, “How much they pay you? We was getting two hundred pesos a month. In Texas what do they pay for this work. I dont know. Hundred a month. Hundred dollars. Yessir. Eight hundred Pesos. Yessir. I reckon” (McCarthy 164). By writing about how much one would be paid for working on a ranch in Mexico compared to working on a ranch in America, McCarthy shows his readers the difference in the wealth of the two nations. An article from Time Magazine also gives readers an idea of what the Mexican economy is like by saying that, “The average Mexican worker makes 1 peso and 25 centavos an hour. At that rate, he has to work ten hours to buy lunch fro a family of five, 72 hours to pay an average rent in the center of the city, and 160 hours to buy a suit of clothes” (Time). Despite the close proximity of the United States and Mexico, the United States is the wealthier of the two nations due to the...
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...was forced to trust the judgment from my parents since they were all I knew from my birth. Neither of my parents went to college, but tried to groom me into a college prepared student. That didn’t go so well. I had no idea what I was doing, and neither did they. The school I went to did no college preparation what so ever, and my parents saw nothing wrong with that. So finally when I graduated I had no idea what I was going to do or how to even proceed. My parents led me to believe that I could go wherever I wanted, so I did. I went to Rhode Island College, and after one semester my parents said that there was no way I was going there and that I needed to come home and pick somewhere else to go. I had invested a lot into that college, and they tore it away. They told me that they have picked a new college for me to go to and I’d be starting in a few weeks. It was culinary school, and though I didn’t mind the classes I hated the outcome. So then I went to Suffolk Community College, with no help from them, and no support in order to start a career path that actually interests me. What I have learned through my limited experiences with life and trust is to be very wary of who you trust, and always trust yourself. Trust needs to be a two way road, and though you cannot get through life only trusting yourself, there needs to be a line where you can distinguish between trusting others or only yourself. The Road by Cormac McCarthy, “The Right to Remain” by Melanie Marnich, “Straightway”...
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...2013B Carefully read the following excerpt from the short story “Mammita’s Garden Cove” by Cyril Dabydeen. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Dabydeen uses literary techniques to convey Max’s complex attitudes toward place. ‘Where d’you come from?’ Max was used to the question; used to being told no as well. He walked away, feet kicking hard ground, telling himself that Line he must persevere. More than anything else he knew 5 he must find a job before long. In a way being unemployed made him feel prepared for hell itself even though he knew too that somewhere there was a sweet heaven waiting for him. How couldn’t it be? After all he was in Canada. He wanted to laugh all of 10 He continued walking along, thoughts drifting back to the far-gone past. Was it that far-gone? He wasn’t sure . . . yet his thoughts kept going back, to the time he was on the island and how he used to dream about 15 being in Canada, of starting an entirely new life. He remembered those dreams clearly now; remembered too thinking of marrying some sweet island-woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house. Maybe someday he’d even own 20 a cottage on the edge of the city. He wasn’t too sure where one built a cottage, but there had to be a cottage. He’d then be in the middle class; life would be different from the hand-to-mouth existence he was used to. 25 His heels pressed into the asphalt, walking on. And slowly he...
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...2013B Carefully read the following excerpt from the short story “Mammita’s Garden Cove” by Cyril Dabydeen. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Dabydeen uses literary techniques to convey Max’s complex attitudes toward place. ‘Where d’you come from?’ Max was used to the question; used to being told no as well. He walked away, feet kicking hard ground, telling himself that Line he must persevere. More than anything else he knew 5 he must find a job before long. In a way being unemployed made him feel prepared for hell itself even though he knew too that somewhere there was a sweet heaven waiting for him. How couldn’t it be? After all he was in Canada. He wanted to laugh all of 10 He continued walking along, thoughts drifting back to the far-gone past. Was it that far-gone? He wasn’t sure . . . yet his thoughts kept going back, to the time he was on the island and how he used to dream about 15 being in Canada, of starting an entirely new life. He remembered those dreams clearly now; remembered too thinking of marrying some sweet island-woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house. Maybe someday he’d even own 20 a cottage on the edge of the city. He wasn’t too sure where one built a cottage, but there had to be a cottage. He’d then be in the middle class; life would be different from the hand-to-mouth existence he was used to. 25 His heels pressed into the asphalt, walking on. And slowly he...
Words: 37585 - Pages: 151
