The Horses of Cormac McCarthy's «All the Pretty Horses»: Rides and Rites of Passage

by Vanessa Keiper, Winfried Herget (Editor)

Overview

The horses in All the Pretty Horses are ubiquitous but rarely the center of attention. Their depiction is surprisingly authentic and without anthropomorphization. This book illustrates how an equicentric reading offers new insights into the novel’s spaces, characters, and relationships. It features comparisons with popular horse-narratives and an equicentric analysis of the novel’s gender relations. How does horsemanship redefine masculinity? What is the inherent connection between femininity and the equine? This book answers these questions from an equicentric perspective, while taking into account patterns of anthropocentrism and misogyny. In addition, the focus is on the narratees and on how the degree of equine experience they bring to the narrative may enhance the horses’ figurative significance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783631817131
Publisher:	Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Publication date:	03/19/2021
Series:	Mainzer Studien zur Amerikanistik , #76
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Vanessa Keiper studied American Studies, philosophy, and medieval history at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, where she also taught classes for several years. She earned her master’s degree at JGU Mainz and also completed her PhD there. Horses are her passion.

Table of Contents

Introduction 15

Horse Scholarship - An Overview 25

Colonization and War 28

The Urban Horse 30

McCarthy's Horses - Why They Matter 33

The Horse as Part of a Spiritual Whole 34

John Grady's Evolving Attitude Toward Horses 37

Riding the McCarthy Horse 41

The Crucial Difference Between Horsemen and Riders 43

Recognizing the Horseman-Rider Difference and Grouping the Characters 49

Group A - Footmen as Characters Without Horses 53

Group B - Riders as Characters With Social Ties 53

Group C - Horsemen as Characters Without Peers 55

Moving Through Time on Horseback 61

The Vilified Present of Cars and Trains 66

Versions of the Past as Connection of Space and Time 78

Transience and Eternity: The Two Habitats of the Horse 85

Teaching, Dreaming, Growing - Grady's Quest for Belonging 91

The Protagonist as Primus Inter Pares 98

The Protagonist as Herd Member 108

The Protagonist as Social Being - Before Saltillo Prison 114

The Protagonist as Social Being - During and After Saltillo Prison 120

Making Space for the McCarthy Horse 125

Narrative Spaces 126

Inside and Outside the Narrative 128

Physical Setting In the Narratives 134

Concepts of "country" and "world" as Narrative Spaces 138

The Equine Spaces of the Narrative 142

Temporal Space 144

Compartmentalization and Outside/Inside Within the Narrative Spaces 147

Between-Spaces 149

Spaces and Motion 154

"Between the telling and the told" - The Narrator-Narratee Co-Dependency 158

Gender Dynamics and the Equine 165

Don Héctor 171

Grady's Father and Mac McGovern 178

Jimmy Blevins 182

Females in The Border Trilogy 187

Dueña Alfonsa 192

Alejandra and Magdalena 196

The Horse-Shaped World of All the Pretty Horses 204

Cabins, Orchards, and Domesticity 208

"You're makin my goddamn head hurt" - A Brief Detour to God in All the Pretty Horses 212

On The Road Without Horses 215

The Horseless World of The Road 216

The Oilcompany Roadmap 217

Orchards and Food 219

The High World and Retrograde Forebodings 224

Conclusion - The Horse Sense of The Border Trilogy 231

Bibliography 237