The title of Cormac McCarthy's novel, All the Pretty Horses, reflects the significance and variance of roles that horses play in this coming-of-age story, as they relate to John Grady. The horse, which was the social foundation of Western American...

The post-World War II boom that informs today's world has no place in Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. The post-war optimism and suburban complacency common to other American works of this period does not figure into McCarthy's novel,...

Although smoking of the past was viewed as glamorous and romantic, its cancerous, harmful effects are now a common fact. Similarly, in Cormac McCarthy’s novel All the Pretty Horses, the consistent smoking throughout the novel juxtaposes the...

Red Sky at Morning and All the Pretty Horses by Richard Bradford and Cormac McCarthy are two novels that encompass a young man’s coming of age experience. Through the use of the unhealable wound, the hunting group of companions, the parent/child...

In both novels, All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy and Light in August by William Faulkner, a central theme of heroism and the expectations placed on the two main characters and other’s surrounding them is presented as a pivotal point for...

The journey from childhood to maturity is guided primarily by the search for meaning. In All the Pretty Horses, protagonist John Grady Cole leaves home to find the place where he belongs in the world. Throughout the novel, John Grady chased the...

Without a doubt, Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses stays true to many common tropes within the Western genre. However; what makes this novel so unique is how McCarthy manipulates some of these important tropes. They are still present...

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy are two works that give their respective characters a choice between love and duty. Although these works differ drastically in historical setting, how love and...

Cormac McCarthy’s ‘All the Pretty Horses’ exposes the futility of clinging to “phantom” dreams which are ultimately “falling away” as a result of the inevitable progression of society. McCarthy emphasises that protagonist John Grady Cole is unable...

In All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy reveals what happens when one learns the truths about the world through John Grady Cole’s journey as he leaves home and experiences the realities of the world in a country foreign to him. Unsatisfied with...

Edward Said creates a paradox in his statement that exile is both an “unhealable rift” and a “potent, even enriching experience”. While paradoxical, these statements hold undeniable truths about the human experience. In the novel All The Pretty...

In American culture, the West is represented as a sprawling wilderness to be dominated by mankind. The idea of the frontier began with the Puritans in the 1600s as a dwelling of evil, a godless land that needed to be claimed by a higher power, but...

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is such a symbolically and philosophically dense novel that anything short of volumes dedicated solely towards its analysis would not do McCarthy’s work justice. However, it may still prove beneficial to hone in on...

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is seen by critics as a uniquely violent and powerful work of modern literature, and McCarthy achieves such an arresting mood through the sheer depravity of the deeds described, in conjunction with the contrast...

From the very beginning of The Road, Cormac McCarthy, in his post-apocalyptic world, makes it very clear to the reader that this is a place of no hope. He treats happiness and excitement as useless acts, which will lead to the characters’...

American author Cormac McCarthy is well-known for unflinchingly examining the moral state of humanity within his writing. His works seldom offer any justification or redemption, leaving readers to equally ponder the sense and senselessness, the...

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road is a gripping tale of survival in a post-nuclear holocaust world full of marauders and cannibals. A man and his son travel the United States in search of food and shelter, all the while hiding from (and...

The post-apocalyptical novel, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, explores the perseverance of a man and his son to survive in an obliterated world. The novel is a modern quest demonstrating faith in man’s power to rejuvenate himself through trust and...

Camus wrote that “the world is ugly and cruel, but it is only by adding to that ugliness and cruelty that we sin most gravely”.

Dystopian novels can be both a mirror and a magnifying glass, reflecting our world and exaggerating aspects of it to...

The journey motif is one of the most widely used elements in American literature. The journey is a powerful symbol often used to represent a character’s adventure leading to an epiphany, or some sort of self-realization. This literary device can...

Cormac McCarthy uses a variety of literary techniques in “The Road” to establish his views on a wide range of themes.

First, the manner in which McCarthy describes the scenes throughout the novel distinctly conveys the bleak world he has created....

Climaxes are moments of increased tension which signify a central turning point within a text. Anti-climaxes can be defined as moments which subvert expectations as they provide a plot twist which are marked by decreased intensity. This essay...

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a piece of literature that depicts the possible effects of a post-apocalyptic world on a man and his son. From a surface-level reading, the novel portrays the bond between parent and child and the struggle to survive...

Natural decay directly influences moral decay in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and John Hillcoat’s film adaptation by the same title. The end of the world in this narrative is so severe because of the loss of nature. When humans see the end of their...