Literary Elements In All The Pretty Horses

Gravelle 1
Kameron Gravelle
Professor Tiffany
Intro. To Lit.
13 November 2014
All the Pretty Horses After reading All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, I am surprised at the amount of literary elements that I noticed as I read. John Grade Cole is the stories protagonist who encounters conflicts in the story that draw us in. I am fond of the word choice that makes us as readers feel like we 're actually in the story experiencing the events that take place. The amount of verisimilitude in the story is intriguing because they are closely related to real life events. I admire these sections. The best part of the story is that the protagonist always ends up enduring the many hardships. Foreshadowing is prevalent throughout the beginning chapters

Each conflict that arises is meaningful, foreshadows events that happens later, or depicts new conflicts. No matter the importance. The section in the story where John Grady and Rawlins notice that someone is trailing them as they are riding shows this. The reader understands that this is not a big issue at first. Then as we read on we realize that it becomes important as a new character enters into the story that brings conflict and problems along with him. Even little details that the author writes into the story are integrated into the main idea. McCarthy also includes many clever examples of the literary element irony in this story. The reader notices that Grady seems to have a less than perfect relationship with his father and mother who have divorced. We as readers are also able to understand the humor that is portrayed by the author 's use of verbal irony. Verbal irony is shown through sarcasm by Grady when he tries to laugh about this rough relationship so that it is easier to deal with. The foreboding we see prompts to dramatic irony later in the story. This intrigues me personally. The protagonist does not know that he will encounter conflict as a result of his actions but the reader catches on due to this use of foreboding. One good example takes place when Grady sticks with his romantic relationship with Alejandra despite many warnings not to by her aunt Alfonsa. Foreboding in this section tells

Examples of this maturation are shown when he explains, "It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they’d have no heart to start at all" (284). Our view of the story changes as well when we notice that Grady 's life of adventure and experiences turns into tragedy and misfortune. His life is more about loss than accomplishment to the point where his life is an ultimate failure. By the conclusion of this story Grady has undergone a complete change. First person point of view used by McCarthy has ended up being a very successful way of telling the story. We see each individual aspect of the story through Grady 's perspective as we are able to understand by his emotion and decisions. The protagonist is also a very reliable character because the reader is never left out of any internal information of the story. McCarthy includes important themes that force the reader to analyze the story deeper. The critical theme of this novel is that sometimes we have to undergo the restrictions of brutality and injustice in life before life has meaning and purpose. Grady also suffers misfortune after misfortune only to arrive at the realization that life turns out to be different than he first envisioned. This theme relates also to the story A Rose for Emily where the protagonist is judged throughout her life due to the way she was raised. Then after her