The Horses of All the Pretty Horses In his novel, All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy presents us with a young man’s journey through the regions of the unknown into adulthood. This novel, at once a western, a coming of age story, and a picturesque adventure, gives the story of John Grady Cole, the last in a long line of west Texas ranchers. As McCarthy moves through this tale, one finds that humans do …showed first 75 words of 1230 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1230 total…discovers that, although he may wish to escape to the old world, that that world is indeed dying out. At the end of the book he rides into the sunset, “rider and horse passed on and their long shadows passed in tandem like the shadow of a single being.” John Grady Cole and his horses are one in the same. One cannot separate the horse from its rider or from his dreams and his nature.