Longing for a certain something that’s more than a place or time and the something is often out of reach. He knows what he’s looking for but at the same time he doesn’t know where it is, which seems like a paradox. (McCarthy 299)Ĭole seems to know that this country, America or the location where he was raised, isn’t his country. For instance, towards the end of the novel Cole and Rawlins have a conversation: I found there was something hard to grasp about the novel, because it’s steeped in nostalgia and longing for something simultaneously vauge and specific. Just because you and your roommate have a dream about falling doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing for both of you. They are fluid and can be interpreted differently for each person. What does that mean to Cole exactly? It sounds like an urge to merge with the land, but this broadness or vagueness still surrounds these concepts.ĭreams are in themselves hard to grasp. Cole has a specific yearning to spiritually connect to wilderness, yet his need to connect “about” and “within” seems broad. To me this is a perfect example of broadness and specificity. Spellman writes, “Cole intrinsically yearns for such a land where he can contemplate the ‘wilderness about him’ and ‘the wilderness within’ him (60)” (“Dreams” 167). I think Spellman articulates this idea of broadness and specificity especially concerning Cole’s longings. She claims there is something universal and specific about the border. She opinion on this topic sparked much debate however, I would have to agree with her. Overall, it seems as though Cole is rarely awake but instead passing from dream to dream like his quest with Rawlins to his love life with Alejandra.Īfter reading this article I was reminded of a quote from Anzaldua on the border. The article references Cole yearning to find his personal “Eldorado,” “a literary metaphor for an unattainable place of fulfillment, always just beyond reach” (“Dreams” 167).
PRETTY BORDERS FOR WORD FULL
Spellman outlines that the novel is full of Cole dreaming in his sleep but also dreaming while he’s awake. Dreams help to further the story of Cole’s search south of the border. Spellman writes, “Dreams provide the textual seams that bind McCarthy’s narrative” (“Dreams” 166-67). “Dreams as a Structural Framework in McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses” by Ched Spellman discusses the role of dreams as a literal device. But in order to get “all the pretty horses” he must wake up from his dreams. If he could find a way to harmoniously live within the progression of society and still find what’s natural then his version of the lullaby could just be the hopeful one. I believe borders are meant to be crossed or even be removed an replaced with an intersection.Ĭole, our leading cowboy, only experiences brief happiness because he creates borders for himself even when he longs not to have any. Borders are meant to represent multiple concepts, because that’s a point where ideas mesh together and become hazy. It’s never just a separation of two things in reality, when a line divides something in half, there becomes a separation of more things. What I’ve realized is that all these borders affect one another, which means that borders create more borders.
Myth/expectations/idealizations/dreams vs.In examining McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses I found myself coming up with various types of borders: