Romanticism In All The Pretty Horses

All the Pretty Horses follows the journey of sixteen year old John Grady Cole and his friends chasing after a cowboy life about half a century too late. John Grady Cole, Lacey Rawlins and Jimmy Blevins learn a lot about reality and maturity in pursuing their romantic ideal. The horses throughout All the Pretty Horses symbolize the romanticized, honorable Old West, which is jeopardized by corruption but ultimately saved by John Grady Cole.
There are multiple references to a special connection between horse and rider in All the Pretty Horses that illustrate the essence of the cowboy fantasy. The author McCarthy establishes the importance of horses from the cover. The title of the book, All the Pretty Horses, defines exactly what John Grady Cole is looking for. It isn’t just horses, but all the pretty horses. It sounds like a description of a Western-style heaven. Once the boys’ adventure starts, it’s clear that the bond between each of them and their horse is special. When Blevins, who’s been established as probably stealing his horse, strips down to his underwear and abandons his horse to hide from lightning, it is described as standing in the rain looking like a “ghost of a horse” (70). There is just something wrong about a cowboy without his horse or vice versa. There’s a very romantic idea that they need each other and sort of belong to each other. When Lacey and John Grady take a break while fleeing the men from whom they stole back Jimmy’s horse, they sit to complain about how immature Jimmy is. What he just did has
Every bit of his support falls through in one way or another, from his friends to the law to his employers to his romantic love, except for the horses. The horses stay pure and give him the strength, after all that’s happened, to ride away into the sunset again on the last page of the