Character Analysis: All The Pretty Horses

In the novel All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy illustrates the coming-of-age protagonist, John Grady Cole, who impulsively decides to travel to Mexico in search of an adventurous lifestyle. Although a teenager, John Grady Cole reveals rather matured behaviors towards his fellow companions, but he preserves the notion that he has control over everything. This very attitude backfires in severe consequences, in which John Grady Cole is essentially powerless. Subsequently, his ideals of cowboy life confronts the reality of adulthood because John Grady Cole loses his most prized attribute -- the child-like belief of
invincibility.