All the Pretty Horses | Themes
All the Pretty Horses is a quintessential initiation novel focusing on John Grady Cole as he passes through various rites of manhood. John Grady begins a new life in Mexico after he is "baptized" in the Rio Grande; he begins his sexual life in another kind of baptism scene; and he is again irrevocably changed after a pseudo-death when he is nearly killed in prison. Not only does he experience firsthand the cruelty and evil of others, but when he kills his would-be assassin, and when he later feels murderous impulses toward the Encantada captain, he is forced to face up to the...
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