The ending of All the Pretty Horses reveals a lot to us about the character of John Grady. In this closing section we see a significant amount of emotional baggage that Grady has been holding onto. In particular when Grady finds out from Alejandra that she will not go to America with him we see the strong impact it has on Grady. When Rawlins and Grady went their separate ways, the main cause was that Grady wanted to reunite with Alejandra and continue their relationship. When this relationship is put to an end by Alejandra’s loyalty to her family Grady is devastated. He believed that she was the one meant for him and losing that person impact him significantly. He has already been through so much trauma. Losing his friend, being imprisoned and attacked, and now the one good thing that he truly cares about is gone as well. Seeing the emotions of Grady come out and the amount of pain he experienced from this loss conveys the value that Grady placed on Alejandra. Did Grady’s emotions harm the overall group? How does love relate and contrast the values typically associated with the frontier?
Categories
2 replies on “All the Pretty Horses; Grady and Love”
I never realized how much baggage, drama, and trauma that John Grady Cole experienced. Reading your post I question how he continued to pursue his journey. I do not believe John Grady allowed his emotions to get in the way of everything he did, therefore, was not the reason the harms that occurred were his fault.
I’m not sure if Grady’s emotions negatively affected the whole group, it may have just seemed that his moral dilemmas came up more frequently because he was the protagonist of the novel. The values of love and the frontier, however, are definitely put in contrast with one another. It almost seems as if the frontier is devoid of love and if does exist, it is quickly fleeting.