Personal Identity In Billy Bob Mccarthy's All The Pretty Horses

In the 1992 novel “ All The Pretty Horses “ A story about a sixteen year old cowboy from Texas who’s dream is to become a cowboy. McCarthy’s book portrays characters in whose personal identities are usually disguised within the demands of two parallel cultures that are contrasting in prosperity, class and views. In “All the Pretty horses”, the reader is subjected to a View heralded within the prison of a society who’s expectation and the lamentation of a time that has almost been forgotten. This is in contrast to Billy Bob Thornton’s movie which tells the story of two men whose values have already been shaped but moulded around the pursuit of the impossible despite the certainty of disappointment. The novel represents characters whose identities are disguised in the stresses of two equivalent cultures with contrasting wealth, class and differed by views resultant from two different cultures.

The Speech that is given by Alfonsa, talks about Mexican culture as being a “machine” arrested in its dominance of women” Conversely still livid with both society and politics. However Alfonsa still refuses to escape for her Niece Alejandra. But for Alejandra escape comes in the form of John Grady, a figure of independence that she greatly seeks and needs. This is a somewhat mocking ambiguity. He speaks of the literal shackles by which man is restrained. McCarthy defines are based on the over-powering notion of practicality. For John Grady, the romanticisation of a life filled by ideas, is brought down, for in Don Hector’s words “there is no greater monster than reason”

Even with opposing identities throughout the book and to a greater scope within the cultures is not suggested to the same meticulous degree as in Billy Bob Thornton’s fil...

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...ividual is that both Thornton and McCarthy accentuate in their adaptations, in particular that of Mexico. But with McCarthy his novel points to integral qualities within people, such as the captain being malicious. But on the other hand Billy Bob Thornton’s film takes a broader picture of a communal based on like-mindedness. Even more definitive in the novel is its critical take on the failings of an upcoming modern society in relation to the more idealistic values adopted by the novels characters, in specific John Grady Cole, who feels displaced in a world flooded by the realism of progress. In both instances, Cole’s quest foretells his rite of passage from the adolescent to a deeper and murkier outlook on the world. In the end however, both McCarthy and Thornton look to the spirit of the horse, its desire to keep running symbolic of civilization’s need to endure.