Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.
Pretty Horses: Introduction
Pretty Horses: Plot Summary
Pretty Horses: Detailed Summary & Analysis
Pretty Horses: Themes
Pretty Horses: Quotes
Pretty Horses: Characters
Pretty Horses: Symbols
Pretty Horses: Theme Wheel
Brief Biography of Cormac McCarthy
Historical Context of All the Pretty Horses
Other Books Related to All the Pretty Horses
- Full Title: All the Pretty Horses
- When Written: 1992
- Where Written: United States
- When Published: 1992
- Literary Period: Contemporary
- Genre: Novel
- Setting: Texas and Mexico
- Climax: After John Brady convinces his lover, Alejandra, to meet him before returning to her hacienda, she refuses to break her word to her great-aunt and marry him, leaving John Grady devastated.
- Antagonist: The nameless “captain,” a Mexican prison director whose official power is questionable, but who is astonishingly cold and unforgiving, and who shoots Blevins in the woods in the middle of the novel.
- Point of View: Third-person limited omniscient
Extra Credit for All the Pretty Horses
King’s Speech. McCarthy was originally named Charles after his father, but one story says he changed his name to Cormac after the Irish king; another says his family changed it, as “Cormac” means “son of Charles” in Gaelic.
Cómo se dice… McCarthy learned Spanish specifically to further his research for his first “Western” novel, Blood Meridian.