OPEN-BOOK QUESTIONS: ALL THE PRETTY HORSES
Chapter 1
1. What does the information about the grandfather’s seven brothers add to the
reader’s understanding of John Grady’s family history and his home?
2. What is the significance of the mention of “oilfield scouts’ cars” on page eleven?
3. How did John Grady’s grandfather teach him to never give up?
4. Why do people stare at John during the intermission of the play (his mother is in)?
5. What is Goshee, and why was John’s mother so important to his father while he
was there?
6. Why does John Grady’s father compare modern people to the Comanche? Why is
this comparison significant?
7. What do the men at the waxcamp ask John Grady about Blevins? Why will John
not tell Blevins?
Chapter II
8. What are unusual qualities of the Hacienda de Nuestra Senora de la Purisima
Concepcion in comparison to other ranches? What is the allusion in the ranch’s
name?
9. Interpret the quote, “They looked like animals trussed up by children for fun and
they stood…with the voice of the breaker still running in their brains like the
voice of some god come to inhabit them.” (p. 105)
10. Interpret how the vaqueros now feel about the boys based on the quote, “when
John Grady pointed and asked that it be passed there came hands from both sides
of the table to take up the dish and hand it down in this manner like a ceremonial
bowl.” (p.110) Do you think John and Rawlins intended to have this result from
their work?
11. “He said that among men there was no such communion as among horses and the
notion that men can be understood at all was probably an illusion. (p.111)Explain
what Luis means by this statement.
12. On a trip into the mountains for horses, John Grady and Rawlins’ conversation
leads to the inference that John has interacted with Alejandra. Why do you think
the author has omitted a description of how and when the pair began speaking to
each other?
13. “Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real. The events that
cause them can never be forgotten, can they?” (p.135) What is the significance of
this quote?
Chapter III
14. Discuss John Grady’s dream that is described on pages 161 & 162. How does it
relate to his current predicament? How might it relate to the title of the novel?
15. Describe the similarities and differences in how the captain treats Rawlins and
John Grady during their interrogations. Why do you think they are treated
differently?
16. Explain Rawlin’s concern with his blood transfusion. What is John Grady’s
opinion on the subject?
17. John Grady say to Rawlins, “You don’t need to try and make it right. It is what it
is.” (p.215) What is he talking about? How does John Grady feel about this
subject?
Chapter IV
18.”And after and for a long time to come he’d have reason to evoke the recollection
of those smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had
power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve…(p.219) Why is
this show of good will particularly significant to John at this point in the novel?
19. Why does John expect Alfonsa to have been more sympathetic about his
relationship with Alejandra?
20. Alfonsa goes into a considerably detailed history of the Mexican Civil War. How
are the facts she offers an example of verisimilitude?
21. John Grady stops to share his lunch with a group of children and ends up telling
them his story. Why is this scene important to the novel? How does hearing John
explain his own story affect the book?
22. Despite everything John has seen during his journey, he says he has never seen
despair before this moment in the restaurant with Alejandra. Does this surprise
you? Why might her despair be greater than Blevins’ just before he is killed, for
example?
23. What good deed does John do while in the place he was once held captive?
24. What does John Grady tell the captain and the charro about his relationship to
Blevins in order to scare the men into cooperating with him?
25. When John Grady kills a doe, what does it lead him to think about? (Here,
McCarthy has John Grady express some profound philosophical beliefs.)
26. Why does John Grady go to see the Reverend? What kindness does he show
John?
27. Rawlins asks John where his country is. Interpret John’s response. What do you
think will make him feel a country is his?
28. To John, the world seems ‘to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor
or dark or pale or he or she.” (p. 301) What does this mean, and what does it tell
you about John?
29. Is it significant that John passes Indians in the beginning of his journey for his
country? Why or why not?
30.Interpret the last lines of the novel: “…and horse and rider and horse passed on
and their long shadows passed in tandem like the shadow of a single being.
Passed and paled into the darkening land, the world to come.” (p. 302)