Horses are symbolic creatures which represent love, devotion, and stability. In the story, “Horses of the night”, horses become symbolic for Chris’s life and how it all changes throughout the years. In the start, Chris is young and full of life, but nearing the end he changes and starts to show his true colours, who he truly is. When Chris is introduced at the start of this story, he isn’t a guest invited warmly into the house, but he doesn’t let that bring him down. Before Chris even arrives, Vanessa states “ Why does he have to come here anyways? Why can’t he go to school where he lives?” (Laurence, 2) and she is not looking forward to having him stay at the Brick House. Chris is youthful and believes he will truly succeed in life. Vanessa is a 6 year old girl who will believe just about anything, so when Chris tells her stories of this magnificent ranch with the utmost amazing race horses, she believes it and asks him all about it. Chris is a dreamer, so the stories of the ranch and horses are all this dream he has concocted, something he hopes for and uses as a distraction from his life. …show more content…
By the time Vanessa is in university, it is likely that Chris was admitted to an asylum to help him. Chris joined the war to get away from the reality of his life, but he was met with death and war, and that drove him insane, “they could force his body to march and even to kill, but what they didn’t know was that he’d fooled them. He didn’t live inside it anymore.” (Laurence, 14). Even though the truth has now been revealed about Chris, Vanessa admits she always knew it was too good to be true. In the attic, she comes across the Criss-Cross ranch saddle she had been given and it reminded her of simpler times from their youth when everything had been positive and they had been dreamers. Vanessa begins to wonder what type of horses Chris may be thinking of now, or if he is still using the horses as a coping mechanism for
There a lot of literary devices used in the excerpt from All the Pretty Horses that convey the true meaning in the scene. The hallway the man walks in has portraits of his ancestors whom he vaguely knows. This is connected to the present day when the man who he has gone to see now is also dead. The paragraph also uses figurative language like “yellowed moustache” and eyelids that are “paper thin” to tell us that the man he went to see is dead. The next sentence following that says “That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping.” putting emphasis on how the man in front of him isn’t sleeping and is truly dead. It also references the way that death is associated with sleep and called the long sleep. The excerpt also mentioned that the man is
At the beginning of the story Horses of the Night, Chris, who lives at Shallow Creek with a poor living condition, is introduced as a distant cousin of the narrator Vanessa. Since there is no high schools at Shallow Creek and as Chris’s dream of becoming a civil engineer, these two facts push him to seek for new opportunities in Manawaka. Though he is still undertaking various inconveniences and hopelessness while he studies in Manawaka, such as Grandfather Connor’s disdain sights toward him and lacking of financial support, he acts indifferently to respond to Grandfather Connor’s attitudes and speaks out his “great expectations” with assurance, as if his future of
Along with taking on the mother role because her mom can’t handle it she is the father as well. Her father is gone to a military base. Instead of attempting suicide, she should have looked to the good in life. She had a Grandma that was there for her and didn’t want this for her granddaughter. “Stay with me, Vanessa.” (Hopkins page 35). Vanessa had a little brother who had to find her bleeding on a bathroom floor. So, why would she want to put her family through that? She should have looked at her grandma and brother and not given up on life. Should have thought about how much it would suck for Bryan to have to go through life being the boy whose sister killed herself. Vanessa should have had the ambition to live on after her mother was sent away and be a better mother, wife, and human being than her mother could have ever done. Instead of ending the pain the easiest and quickest way possible she could have seen a doctor, gotten a diagnosis and worked to better herself. She should have made the problems in her life a tiny little piece of it instead of her whole entire
However, people who try to live a different kind of life tend to end up dead. Clearly, both selections show a difference in symbolism. However, although the selections highlight a different symbolism, they are similar in desire for a better life, descend into the darkness and conflict. In “Horse of the Night”, Christ is keen on going to university. He wants to get educated and have a better life.
Throughout the book he shows great ambition and also the tendency to be self-centered. Chris harbors a lot of resentment toward his father for having a second family, which he only discusses with his sister rather than his parents. Around the time of his college graduation, he seems to have a good relationship with his parents and remained very close with his sister. He took off after this, with seemingly no recognition of his beloved sister or his parents. Chris never contacts his family again, which will in turn leaving them to wonder what they did wrong. Along with this selfishness, Chris shows a somewhat deliberate ignorance towards basic survival skills such as appropriate gear and food. “ He had no ax, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass. The only navigational aid in his possession was a tattered state road map he’s scrounged at a gas station.”(5). It is proven early on that Chris is very intelligent and has a natural talent for outdoor tasks. With this background, Chris would have undoubtedly known the conditions of the Alaskan wilderness and what supplies he would need. These actions show that Chris is over confident in his abilities. He had developed an inflated view of outdoor survival due to extensively reading books by authors such as Jack London. “He was so enthralled by these tales, however, that he seemed to forget they were works of fiction,
D.H. Lawrence’s writings often mirror elements of his own life, though they contain decidedly fictitious components. The characters in Lawrence’s The Rocking- Horse Winner closely resemble his own family. Like Paul, Lawrence was seeking a way out of the misfortune of pre-war London living. Unlike Lawrence, Paul is already well-to-do. Paul’s search consists of a yearning for affection and acceptance. In The Rocking-Horse Winner a young boy finds a certain calling within himself that serves to vastly improve the standing of his entire family. However, Paul’s supernatural ability to choose the winners of horse races is but a cursory assessment of the story’s secrets. Digging deeper, the reader becomes aware of a darker meaning to Paul’s wild rides. There are two things are revealed throughout Paul’s character development; first, that he is seeking his mother’s affection. Secondly, in doing so, there is an apparent autoeroticism linked to his seemingly innocent rocking-horse.
Chris wanted to seek refuge from his home because of what he found out about his father. After Chris’s sophomore year of college at Emory University, during the summer he went on his usual cross-country wanderings. He went to California to visit the El Segundo neighborhood where he'd spent the first six years of his life. He called a lot of old family friends who still liv...
Alan is a 17-year-old boy who worships horses instead of God. Religion plays a strong role in Alan’s life. Dora Strang, Alan’s mother strongly believes in God and raises Alan to do the same. In Alan’s modified Christian religion, he replaced Jesus with a horse, Equus, which in turn became the object of his worship instead of the religion that Dora had taught him. After Alan had committed the act of blinding the six horses
What are the dominant symbols in the play and how does Fugard develop them to illustrate the destructive force of racism?
No Horse to be a safe haven for him as he questions his identity. As Agnes states near the end of
Contrary to the story’s focus on horses, the movie focuses on the romance between John Grady and Alejandra as its poster has the couple with a greater presence compared to the miniscule graphic of horses shoved on the bottom; whereas the book’s cover is graced with the image of a horse and only of that horse. Of all the events that were absent from the movie, the romance scenes are the most kept intact as well as an odd addition of an onlooker dancing when John Grady finishes talking with Alejandra on the phone after being bailed out of jail. In fact, it feels like horses are more of an afterthought in this adaptation because John Grady does not put any emphasis on them as he does in the novel. While in jail, John Grady had a dream about horses, “… in the dream he was among the horses running and in the dream he himself could run with the horses …” (McCarthy 161) In the fashion of flickering images for a subliminal message, brief, flashing visions of Alejandra are injected into this dream when there were none. Romance is pushed as the main focus of the story, but it fails to make the couple fulfilling since the dynamic between John Grady and Alejandra is not developed well enough to make it
In ‘horse,’ the speaker describes a horse being betrayed and then killed in a small town in Texas. The first two stanzas described the horse thundering towards outstretched hands being attracted to a field of corn but instead it is attacked by a group of white teenage boys who leave it mutilated. The sheriff of the town does not do anything because he believes that it is in their nature to do so. In the last stanzas the Mexican owner puts the horse out of his misery and someone tries to pay him for the damage. His people are disappointed because they believe that money could not make up for the death of the horse but, they do nothing about it. It would seem the horse in the poem is meant to represent the Mexican culture and how it is being eradicated by the dominant white society in the United States.
Horses are the most noticeable symbol in the whole book. Horses are a necessity to the boys. The horses are political and economic assets to Grady, Rawlins and Blevins. Specifically for John Grady, horses are more important to him than humans. He constantly dreams of him running with horses and always thinks about them. To Grady horses are like a way to distract him from all his problems and give him a sense of freedom because he does not have to worry about all the stress, problems, and people. Grady relates humans and horses stating that horses are superior to the human race. "Finally 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." (Page 111) Grady has a passion for horses. He tells the horses everything like his life story, his thoughts, and secrets. Since Grady does not trust humans he turns to the horses as an output. Grady’s love for horses reveals more about Grady himself. It makes Grady seem like a fairly lonely person because he only trusts horses and prefers horses over humans.
All in all, it is interesting how the trials of life can lead a person into an awakening that inspires millions. Many people believe that walking “into the wild” to live off the land and find himself alone in nature was arrogant, foolish and irresponsible. Chris lacks of knowledge about the wild was a major factor in his death. Chris did not plan how he will survive in the wilderness without proper equipments. He misunderstood that he would have no problem in setting in the wild. Chris immature manner and decisions lead him to starvation and ultimately death. If he planned it out in the beginning he would have saved his life.
In conclusion, horses mean more to me than many other things. They are part of my friends and family, but I also have great respect for them. Horses are surrounded by benefits that make us feel exceptional. Their colors are all attractive. Their breeds are marvelous and unique. Their history with us is quite a beneficial relationship. Their behavior is different from ours, but is an easy language to learn. Showing horses is exhilarating! Caring for them can seem like a chore, but is actually an overall fun and propitious experience. Riding horses is fun and meaningful, not just something to learn or do just because. And, no matter what people say, I believe there is something truly special about my dear friend the horse.