740 McCarthy, Cormac
view of love is challenged, Blevins’s execution alters
his conception of human morality.
When Blevins is unjustly executed by a corrupt
Mexican police captain, John Grady and Rawlins
are both deeply affected. The captain justifies his
action by explaining that violence is the only way
for a man to establish respect. The willingness of the
captain to kill another person in order to retain his
status as a feared man calls into question the boys’
naïve view of honor and justice. As Rawlins leaves
Mexico to return home, he recalls Blevins’s execu-
tion. John Grady attempts to assure Rawlins that he
will feel better when he returns home, but Rawlins
disagrees, saying “I don’t think so.” The senselessness
of Blevins’s death forces the boys to alter their view
of human morality; both John Grady and Rawlins
come to understand the horrible brutality of which
humans are capable.
In the penitentiary, John Grady’s courage and
manliness are tested when he is forced to kill in
self-defense. This event marks his final movement
from an uninitiated, naïve boy, to a man willing to
shed blood. Once imprisoned, Rawlins is badly hurt
in a fight and is taken away by the prison guards.
Alone in the penitentiary, John Grady goes to visit
an influential convict named Perez in order to get
information about his injured friend. Perez tells
John Grady that the world wants to know if he is
“brave.” Soon after this exchange, he is attacked by
an assassin. Barely managing to survive, John Grady
is forced to kill the assassin in self-defense. This test
of skill and strength proves that he is a man, but at
the cost of his conscience. Near the end of the novel
he visits a judge and relates to him his feelings on
having killed a person. Although he knows that he
acted in self-defense, he continues to be bothered by
the event. He proves to the world that he is brave,
but the cost is too great.
Although John Grady is awakened to the beauty
of love and sex, he learns that no matter how ardent
he is in his desire, there are some forces too great to
overcome. The profound senselessness of Blevins’s
execution alters both John Grady and Rawlins’s
belief in the relative honor and morality of people.
But perhaps the most drastic change in John Grady
is his realization that courage is necessary to life, and
yet often requires regrettable actions. John Grady’s
movement into adulthood is a painful process as he
learns the futility of passion, the brutality of humans,
and the tremendous cost of bravery.
Alan NobleFate in All the Pretty Horses
One of the central issues McCarthy engages in All
the Pretty Horses is whether or not humans have free
will to act in the world. These issues are primarily
worked out through the character Jimmy Blevins.
Early in the novel, Jimmy Blevins is convinced
that it is his fate to be killed by lightning if he is
exposed to a storm. In the process of fleeing from
the lightning, Blevins loses his horse and gun, set-
ting in motion a series of events that culminate in
his execution. Blevins fulfills the prophecy of his
death in trying to circumvent it. Ultimately, however,
McCarthy seems to imply that the person who actu-
ally controls the boy’s destiny is the Mexican captain
who kills him.
Blevins’s story focuses on the question of whether
or not a person can escape his fate, and while Blevins
manages to avoid being struck by lightning, the
events that unfold as a result of the storm lead to
his execution, suggesting that humans are incapable
of freely choosing their fate. Soon after John Grady
Cole and Lacey Rawlins meet the young Blevins, a
storm brews. Blevins informs his companions that
he must find shelter from the storm or else he’ll “be
struck sure as the world.” He explains to Cole and
Rawlins that his family has a long history of being
struck by lightning, and thus it is his fate to suffer
the same consequences if he remains exposed to the
storm. Blevins hides from the lightning under the
cover of a dead cottonwood. In the ensuing storm
Blevins escapes without being struck by lightning,
but his horse runs off, taking his gun with him.
Because Blevins believed that it was his fate to be
struck, he loses his horse and gun; in the process of
regaining his possessions from the man who found
them, he kills in self-defense. Although Mexico does
not have the death penalty, a family member of the
man Blevins killed makes arrangements with the
police captain to execute him in order to protect his
family’s honor. This family member cannot bring
himself to kill the boy, so the police captain is com-
pelled to execute Blevins to protect his own honor.