Brash, precocious, and trigger-happy, Jimmy Blevins' fatal flaw is his inability to admit his own error or let go of the past. He claims he is sixteen, riding his own horse, and possesses the same name as a popular radio personality - all of which Rawlins impugns. The first - and perhaps the most indicative - thing we learn about Jimmy Blevins when he meets Rawlins and John Grady is that he isn't a very good liar. When his thirst for adventure threatens to drown him, he ultimately abdicates his journey and returns back home. Perhaps this is because his motivation for leaving San Angelo never becomes clear - if John Grady is looking for a higher purpose south of the border, Rawlins simply seems to be seeking a relief from boredom. Where John Grady is intense, reticent, wary, Rawlins is flippant, loquacious, sometimes puerile. Of the two Americans, Rawlins is certainly the more emotional - he can't help but catcall when he sees Alejandra for the first time, nearly cries at the captain's barrage of questions - but he's unfailingly loyal to his best friend. Lacy Rawlins is John Grady's best friend and riding partner. And though this inclination makes him a particularly 'moral' hero, it is also one that leaves him disillusioned at the end of the novel and regrettably hardened. His conscience is guided by the righteous and romantic. He might listen to Alfonsa's tragic history or the captain's rationalization for blackmail, but it will not change his own views or his own behavior.

During the course of these exchanges, he reveals himself to be great believer in the divide between good and evil, between right and wrong. Our best insight into John Grady's character often comes in his conversations with foreigners - Rocha, Alfonsa, el capitan. His greatest strength is his intensity - indeed, his determination is perhaps the only reason he survives the peril of the Castelar prison, the impromptu rescue of the horses from Encantada.Īt the same time, he struggles with his tendency to idealize and moralize.

He becomes a father to Blevins, a lover to Alejandra, a loyal companion to Rawlins. In the course of his journey, he must grow up quickly. Indeed, his rite of passage is not to run his mother's ranch, but to leave it. With no recourse, John Grady becomes a character in search of a story, a hero in search of a novel. But when his grandfather dies, his mother inherits the ranch - and promptly decides to sell it. At sixteen, his dream is to run the ranch on which he's lived his whole life.

The main character of All the Pretty Horses, John Grady Cole certainly does not begin McCarthy's novel as a prototypical Western hero.

Pretty horses book