Book Analysis: All the Pretty Horses

Page # | Definition of Term | Example from Text | Implication/Impact | 6 | Setting: the time and place of the action of a literary, dramatic, or cinematic work | “…but the warriors would ride on in that in that darkness they’d become, rattling past with their stone-age tools of war in default of all substance and singing softly in blood and longing south across the plains to Mexico.” | The setting takes places in the West from about 1949-1950. John Grady Cole travels to Mexico and later returns to San Angelo, Texas. During the time, the cowboy era was fading in the West for a more cosmopolitan lifestyle. The setting of this novel revolves around the main character’s search for solace and solitude in a place where he can live the cowboy life. | 30 | Tone: an author’s attitude towards a subject | “They rode out along the fenceline and across the open pasture land. The leather creaked in the morning cold…The lights fell behind them. They rode out on the high prairie where they slowed the horses to a walk and the stars swarmed around them out of the blackness.” | John Grady Cole went to Mexico in search for the conception of the romantic American Western lifestyle which included freedom and good defeating evil but on his journey, all he found was tragedy and poverty. This shifted the tone from romantic to realistic where John Grady’s cowboy dreams were more subdued and resigned. | 79 | Style: the way an author portrays the story and describes events, objects, and ideas | “Meanin this is it. This is our last chance. Right now. This is the time and there wont be another time and I guarantee it.Meanin just leave him?” | McCarthy doesn’t use conventional apostrophes in order to make the dialogue seem seamless. He also doesn’t use quotation marks which made it difficult to determine who was speaking. The effect of this quick exchange between Rawlins and John was to decide whether or not to leave Blevins behind. The omission of punctuation made the interaction seem