In Search of the Truth - John Grady Cole - Essay Example

In Search of the Truth John Grady Cole is the main character of "All the pretty horses" by Cormac McCarthy, but all the characters have an importantpart. The writer uses many symbols and the goal of the book is achieved only when these symbols together with the evolution of the characters are accomplished. Cole is a transitory character and his position is very difficult. He has lived all his life with his grandfather in a peaceful world governed by the rules of nature, and suddenly his grandfather dies. This is how the novel begins. This death is a metaphor for the Western collapse, for the destruction of a whole system. The grandfather embodies the undisturbed life, and after his death Cole begins to think by himself. He leaves a world that he thought he knew for one in which none of the past rules were available. At the beginning he doesn't know that he departs to find the truth about life and about himself. Besides the differences between him and others he must go exploring the world, because when everything collapsed, when his world ruined, he started to understand that the world might mean something else. His awakening is very much alike with what Plato said in the allegory of the cave. Cole is one of the philosopher-prisoners who sees the sun , the symbol of knowledge, and goes to find it. On his way he is surrounded by all kinds of people who try to withhold him. Finding the truth is not such a simple mission , it involves some obstacles and reaching it requires the passing of certain stages, from innocence to experience. These changes are revealed in the book with the help of symbols. In the beginning of the novel Grady is seen as a child who wants to conquer the world, but at the end he is presented with scars on his face and chest. His lack of experience from the beginning makes him to mistake, and the scars are the symbols of rough time that harden him and made him an experienced man. In the beginning Cole arrives to a ranch named "La hacienda de nuestra Senora de la Purisima Conception". This Mexican ranch is very much related to the state of the characters when they reach there. The name in English means Virgin Mary and implies that Grady arrives there with the hope that he will regain the moral values lost in his world. But Mexico is very similar to Texas. The owner of the ranch wants to combine two breeds of horses, so he wants to merge two styles of living, but he is very much against the union of his daughter with an American. This is the paradox of this world, and the meaning must to be seen in the symbol of horse. John Grady amazes everyone with his ability to break the wild horses, but this comes from the fact, that he himself is a wild horse, riding for a new truth. At certain moments in the novel characters are very much alike horses. The horse is the symbol of friendship and freedom: Cole goes with his friend to Mexico, and they get friends with a third: Jimmy Blevins who had stolen a horse. Their friendship and the stealing of this horse are the one that gets Cole near death. The owner of the Mexican ranch doesn't want to breed wild mountains horses with its stock; he wants to subjugate the most powerful breed to make a stronger one. At a negative meaning the horse represents the stamina, and also the love and the death. Extending at the level of characters: the owner of the Mexican ranch wants the help of Grady, he praises his ability, but he doesn't want the unification of the two worlds, symbolized by the marriage, and in this way he rejects Grady. They are two different cultures and civilizations and Grady is not welcomed in any side. From the moment they arrived at the ranch they were seen as employees and their help was only temporarily. Even Alejandra's aunt was against the young lovers' affair denouncing the cultural differences between them. In this respect, John and Alejandra can be visualized like two wild horses that experience the taste of freedom and love, but only one is ready to face them. Alejandra will drop out her dream, being influenced by her family. John Grady tries to find a new space for himself to give a new purpose for his life, but he manages only to discover himself. It is very hard to change mentalities and to change people , but he tries to do that. At the end of the novel he is a different man, so he finds the true self, he is superior from the spiritual point of view, but he doesn't have the power to change others or to show them the right path. This outcome is to be found in the philosophical thought of stoicism, when you cannot control external, so the environment or the others, but you can only control internal so your thoughts and feelings. McCarthy builds a realistic setting, and sometimes Cole seams the idealistic character that doesn't abandon his dreams. From this point of view this novel may be seen as the image of Plato's allegory of the cave. Every character has a correspondent in this myth. Cole's desire to go, to find another purpose might be understood as the sun outside the cave. This embodies the true knowledge. Plato describes the cave as a body-prison in which the soul should lead, and in it there are two types of prisoners, the normal ones who don't want to think by themselves believing the faith is the only one responsible for their lives and the philosopher-prisoners, the ones that see the fire, follow that path but , when returning to the cave they don't know how to explain the others what they saw. John Grady is a philosopher-prisoner and he sees the sun and goes to find the true knowledge. The chains and the guards are the outside force. In this novel, these chains and guards were his parents (his mother sells the estate without thinking at the consequences, his father is not capable to surpass the old psychological wounds so they did not help Grady in any way), or his social influence. The medium is a hostile one: he is exiled from his environment and when he wants to be free physically and spiritually, the other ones chain him. Grady's parents, his environment, the owner of the Mexican ranch they are all the embodiments of the chains and guardians from Plato's allegory. The path from the unknown to experience and wisdom is very hard: Grady kills a man in prison, his lover left him and he understands that for dreams you have to pay a prize very high. But, allegorically speaking he is the one that reaches the sun of the true knowledge. Returning to the cave (his external live) meets the so called ordinary people who do not want to set free: Grady tries to convince his lover, Alejandra, to go with him, but she is restrained by her society and family and she is not capable to see the most important thing, she remains at the level of normal prisoners. Reaching the highest level, reaching the "sun" Grady changes as a human being(after his release he looks for the true owner of the horse, returns home wanting to share with others what he had experienced). McCarty sustained a system based on existentialism. This was a philosophical movement that did not treat the individual as a concept. In this view the man has to question about himself, about the meaning of life because only in this way he will develop. Existentialists believed that existence precedes the essence - a man exists before his existence has value or meaning. This movement emphasis action, freedom, decision, so from this point of view Grady is a existentialist character who wants to built his own destiny. He is no longer the exponent of Western rationalist view, in which the universe and a man's life were often ambiguous. Existentialism was opposed to the Nihilism, a movement in which life hadn't any ruler or God, any truth. Existentialism and Nihilism are the two views of the novel. Grady and his friends are existentialist because they want to discover themselves, they value life and the individual, and they action, which is maybe the most important thing (from Plato's allegory these are the philosopher-prisoners that follow the sun). On the other hand there are the ones that want to impose themselves by fear or violence, the ones that don't believe in a major truth or God-these lived inside the caves, who are fooled by the shades or puppets (Grady's parents, Alejandra, even his friend Rawlins). Rules and conventions are not good when someone wants to find himself and sometimes what one believes it is right, for others might be wrong, that is why someone should make his own living. For example when Blevins steals the horse, everybody sees that as a crime, but in fact that animal was free, no one has any power or right over him. Grady is an existentialist character, but the other ones don't have so much strength. If Grady believes that his decisions can change the world, can make a difference, the other characters were often driven by fate. It is very obvious that Grady does not believe in destiny as long as he can think and act by himself. The novel has a circular feature. It opens with the grandfather's death and it ends with the funeral of a woman servant called "grandmother". If the former death symbolized the collapse of a system and the beginning of the Grady's conquest, the latter may embody the regrets and the death of his hopes. As Plato said there are people in the "cave" that don't want to be illuminate. John Grady started with the desire of regaining his status and his life, but in the end he discovered that much more important is to know yourself better. Maybe he didn't find a physical world, but spiritually speaking he was no longer chained in a prison or ignorant, but free and willing to make his own life. Works Cited McCarthy , Cormac. All the pretty horses Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Existentialism. 2 November, 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism Animal Symbolism-Many cultures. 18 October, 2006 http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/animals2.htm Read More