Brilliant student
Mrs. Lindsey
AP English Literature and Composition
Period 3
October 28, 2012
A Gentle Knight’s Demise
Anaïs Nin wrote, “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other
souls.” Set in 1949, Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses tells a story of sixteen-year-old
John Grady Cole and his journey from San Angelo Texas to Mexico in search for a lifestyle that
ended with his grandfather’s death. While on this journey, he found love and friendship as well
as the tragic reality that comes with a lifestyle in a place and culture far different from his own.
According to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth of a hero, the hero goes through various stages that
act as rites of passage and help the evolution of the character. A satire such as Miguel de
Cervantes’s classic work Don Quixote de la Mancha may embody many of the traits of this
model of departure followed by an initiation and a return, albeit mocking many of the heroic
features of romances in the period in which it was written. The elements of the quest as presented
by Campbell serve as a catalyst for maturation and self-discovery in All the Pretty Horses,
especially in context of the cowboy lifestyle and his more cynical attitude toward the world at the
end of the journey.
The monomyth begins with the departure, which has the initiating action or motivation
for the rest of the quest. This usually consists of a call to adventure, due to some external event
and can be brought about by circumstances at birth. Don Quixote satirizes the beginnings of the
knight’s adventure where, a knight of noble birth would be called to war or to some cause by the
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people or by the king of a province. Don Alonso Quijano, who was “bordering on fifty”
(Cervantes, I), was by no means strong or athletic. He was a spare and gaunt faced man who
“gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity” (Cervantes, I) that
his brain had shriveled up and inspired him to become a “knight-errant” that would roam
looking for adventures, upholding the knightly code, and gaining fame as a byproduct of his
good deeds. John Grady however had no such noble intentions. He was chasing a cowboy
lifestyle that was in a sense was “a dream of the past where the painted ponies and the lost nation
came down from the north” (McCarthy, 5), a lost cause due to the death of his grandfather. His
grandfather, a man who had holdings and survived many epidemics and catastrophes (McCarthy,
7) had been the embodiment of that form of lifestyle of the rough, strong, and wild qualities that
came with the cowboy. Losing him was like losing a part of himself and this was enforced by not
only the loss of the ranch and the unwillingness of his parents to compromise, but also his
ignorance to their divorce. Mr. Franklin, the family lawyer, had encapsulated the jest of John’s
sentiment that having a ranch would be “second best thing to dying and going to heaven”
(McCarthy,17). However, John was not able to avoid this fate, leading John to pack up food and
his horses and head to Mexico in search of the lifestyle that he had lost. At this point in the
novel, he was still naïve about the realities he must face in a new country.
The next element is the initiation portion of the quest. The initiation includes many of the
trials that a hero may face, such as adversaries or women. Don Quixote tends to reverse some of
the expectations of the monomythic hero, as the woman that becomes the temptress and can both
fuel his actions and hinder him is one that is a mere concept based on a human model. Princess
Dulcinea de Toboso, the “Lady of his Thoughts” (Cervantes, I) had kept him up many a night as
he dedicated many of his poems and words toward this woman who never once knew that she
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had been rechristened and put on a pedestal. John likewise held Alejandra in a similar position in
his head. In the scene where Alejandra and John go to the lake and swim, she is described as
being “so pale in the lake that she seemed to be burning. Like foxfire in a darkened wood. That
burned cold” (McCarthy 141). This image reinforces her as the temptress that endangers John’s
newfound job as a cowboy and horse breeder in Mexico for Alejandra’s father Don Hector. One
of the special skills that John had was in the taming of horses as evidenced by the horses acting
towards John’s voice as if it was a “voice of some god come to inhabit them” (McCarthy, 105).
This innate skill allowed him to integrate himself into the society, much like knights would have
skill to fight. Unfortunately, for Don Quixote, he had no such concept of training to fight with
swords. More often than not, the lack in fighting and riding skill, when coupled with his strong
sense of duty toward upholding the code of chivalry, is responsible for his many injuries that
send him back to his home or leave him so severely injured even his magical homemade “balsam
of Fierabras” made no effect on his health.
The initiation in John’s story also involves Jimmy Blevins, an aloof and somewhat
mysterious character of dubious background. This character had shown that he was “a hell of a
shot” (McCarthy 90) by shooting through Rawlins billfold. Even though Blevins had not said
much about his past or wanted to admit what he had done John Grady does show some
compassion and interest in him. When Blevins had first gotten away from the two boys after the
storm, Rawlins asked rhetorically “and where do you reckon that horse’ll be?” (McCarthy, 69).
John Grady, in his stoic expressionism, demonstrated his concern by staring ahead, thinking most
likely about what had become of the kid. He had fought to get Blevins’s clothes and horse back
from those who had claimed them and later interrogate Blevins not entirely out of self interest
and how much Blevins had implicated Rawlins and himself, but also concern for a boy that to
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him seemed “fourteen…thirteen even” (McCarthy, 167) years old at least. This almost paternal
relationship of concern for others as well as the greater connection to others begins to grow. He
begins to forge connections with others and their culture, but also fails to understand the
principles of honor. This leads to the antagonism of Duena Alfonsa and Don Hector toward him
for being with Alejandra. Ultimately, the initiation sobers John up in regards to the intentions of
others and the darker side of humans that may lie or cheat and make use of John’s sense of
chivalry in order to get themselves out of trouble or use it to get him imprisoned.
The last element of Campbell’s monomyth is the return. For John this was the moment
when he had been bailed out of jail and had lost Alejandra. If Alejandra had been his boon, much
like a holy grail would be to a romance or Don Quixote’s sanity is to the priest and his niece.
Sancho and Don Quixote return to their village after being defeated by the Knight of the White
Moon, having left “had left Don Quixote in such a sad plight” that he was not only bruised and
feeble especially at his age, but may have also rendered his horse “crippled for life” (Cervantes,
LXIV). A hero’s return is often one of triumph and back to a home that they had left long ago, to
find some peace in the end. Johns return to Texas begins with his escape from the jail and his
breaking up with Alejandra. The moment that she had left his life, he had felt that “something
cold and soulless enter[ed] him…that it would [n]ever leave” (McCarthy, 254) his own being. He
loses his sense of direction, his ultimate goal and his precarious dream of being a cowboy begins
to disintegrate. He begins to lose his own values, as highlighted by the Captain’s question “Are
you afraid of God?” to which John answers “I got no reason to be afraid of God. I’ve got a bone
or two to pick with Him” (McCarthy, 272), a clear sign that morality no longer leads his actions
as they once did. Even though in the end John does confess to the judge what he has done,
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especially in respects to killing out of self-defense, John is disoriented and his future remains
vague and unclear.
During the Return phase of the monomyth, the hero often realizes something about his or
herself or even the world he has experienced. Upon the last chapter of the second part to the
story, Don Quixote had fallen ill yet also regained his sanity declaring as he was on his deathbed
that “all that nonsense… [of chivalry]that until now has been a reality to my hurt, my death will,
with heaven's help, turn to my good” leading him to write a stipulation in his will that his niece
may only marry “a man…[that] does not know what books of chivalry are” (Cervantes,
LXXIV). By doing this, Cervantes makes clear Don Quixote’s or at this point Alonso Quijano’s
realization that chivalry was an ideology that could no longer survive in 17th century Spain, and
realized the insanity of his actions and adventures. Don Quixote diverges from the classic
romantic heroic tale, as he does not go off to write novels of his travels as the first part of the
story had suggested. Instead, his story is more a tragedy, but he remains heroic in the way that he
maintains his ideals until shortly before he dies. All the Pretty Horses also diverges from the
classic ending and realization. For John, losing some of the friendship to his friend Rawlins, the
death of his father during Thanksgiving, and the death of Louisa’s mother marked tragedy and
cynicism in John. The last line of the novel , “like the shadow …passed and paled into the
darkening land, the world to come” (McCarthy, 302) serves to emphasize the nature of this loss
on his attitude, where the darkness symbolizes his depression at his failed dream, but also some
optimism in respect to what may happen in a implicit future.
The quest functions in both novels to expand the amount of time that a certain part of
their journey entails. Both Don Quixote and John Grady Cole can be donned as heroes for their
adherence to their anachronistic values. The hero is the stoic warrior with godly abilities or
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divine help that also has noble qualities. John does not fit the model of this classic hero much
like Don Quixote does not fit into the classic romance. They are missing the elements of
grandeur, the roles of helper characters, and especially that divine power that may work itself
into their stories. Anaïs Nin’s quote sums up much of the goal of these characters in their
respective quests. Yet in looking for another way of life, the character can become corrupted as
much as they can become enlightened about the nature of life. John began his own journey to try
to seek a place to root himself in a lifestyle that would soon be as good as dead. While he does
find love he matures emotionally even mentally as he has come to realize what his actions had
caused others and caused him to do. His self-conscious motivations had led him to seek what
was not his, much as we do in our own everyday lives. People may often find solace in
regression, only to find bitterness when they find that even their invented realities have come to
harm them. Don Quixote de la Mancha is alluded to in All the Pretty Horses as a reminder that
not all the values and customs that an individual may want to instate will not be accepted and but
also the antagonism between what we may feel is right and what by reason may actually be.
Thus the ideals that are not realistic may prove dangerous to the character who holds them in
high regard.
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Works Cited
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel. Don Quixote. Trans. John Ormsby. N.p.: Project Gutenberg, 2004.
Project Gutenberg. Web. 25 Sept. 2012. <
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/996/pg996.html>
MacCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. New York: Vintage International, 1993. Print.