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Innocence And Self Discovery In All The Pretty Horses

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Innocence and Self Discovery In All The Pretty Horses As every person starts innocent and pure, time slowly picks away at that purity through relationships and new experiences. The journey made to find themselves reveals the hard truth that youth can’t be forever. John Grady Cole’s repetitive image of innocence throughout his journey explains his maturity when he returns home. McCarthy repeats the idea of John’s loss of innocence throughout his journey by his decisions with Blevins, his relationship with Alejandra and his revenge against the captain to show John’s expedition of growing up.
First, John loses his childish innocence and portrays the image of a father towards Blevins. Rejected of his dream to operate his home ranch, John …show more content…

John and Alejandra experience a passionate, but a short relationship which expresses as a normal rebellious stage of the teenage years because of their secrecy and sneaking around. A drift between the two lovers forms when John loses Alejandra. John’s relationship with Alejandra transitions from a rebellious connection, to a serious, adulthood relationship when he puts his heart on the line and asks for her hand in marriage. Essentially giving Alejandra an ultimatum, consequently leaving no choice but for his hopes to fall. Alejandra passes the opportunity of John’s proposal, because the new adoption of the adulthood life isn’t accepted by Alejandra as it’s accepted by John. He “Saw very clearly how all his life led only to this moment and all after led nowhere at all. He felt something cold and soulless enter him like another being and he imagined that it smiled malignly and he had no reason to believe that it would ever leave.” Once the realization of Alejandra’s rejection set in, John concluded that his journey now becomes foreign. John’s loss of innocence expresses his sad realization that love can’t always exist openly in this world. McCarthy repeats Johns newly lost innocence because it portrays the foreign destiny that John’s path leads to. As John’s innocent skin begins to shed, a cold, determined state of retribution replaces it. John’s relationship with Alejandra pushes him to lose his innocence because of the way he deals with rejection and renewal. His experiences with Alejandra helps change him from a foolish child to a mature adult and as a result, he loses his

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