All_the_Pretty_Horses_Prose_Analysis

Prose Analysis 1. a. In the opening of the passage, the tension is between the individual and nature. b. The tension established in the opening of the passage is established through diction such as "black suit," "forebears," "funeral cloth," and "guttered candlestub;" all diction associated with funerals and death. It sets a depressing mood. And the author uses imagery to capture the dark mood of the room holding the corpse. c. The larger issue that the author is getting at is that even if people are dead, who they were and what they did is still alive as long as it's remembered. 2. 3rd paragraph "In the evening he saddled...and violent lives." a. The tension is shown by the reminiscent tone expressed by language such as, "ancient road," "a dream of the past," "lost nation," or "waste to darkness bearing lost to all history and all remembrance." The main character is recalling the ancient Indian tribe, demonstrating the theme that although dead, they live on in his memories. b. The literary devices the author uses is imagery to effectively convey the memory and how real they are for the main character. c. This passage furthers my understanding by showing that the past will always be remembered. Although physically gone, the ancient people live on, the extent depending on how much of the details the main character has managed to remembere. And it is the main character that actually has the choice to really kill them or not: he can ensure they live on in spirit by sharing with others his knowledge, or the Indian tribe can die with the main character and his silence. 3. Last paragraph a. The tension is shown through language in diction such as, "rode with the sun coppering his face," "dismounted and dropped the reins and wlaked out and stood like a man come to the end of something." It gives the sense of finality. b.The author uses imagery to describe the landscape and conditions of his setting, like the wind. c. In this section, the tension is outlined in the last sentence, "...and stood llike a man come to the end of something." The main character is standing there, acknowledging death, and that the ancient Indians who used to walk the land before are gone as well, and that he too will gone them in the end, yet he is still alive physically. Life is still continuing on. It was individual against nature, but the individual is not fighting nature at all. He's accepted it is part of life and that nature is an ongoing process that humans are a part of. 4. a. The larger idea that the author expressed is that death is a part of life, and dying does not mean the end. The main character first views death in the depressing room and accepts it upon sight. Then, taking his horse for a ride, he begins reminiscing of the Indian tribe that used to migrate that path he was now riding on. He is remembering their horses, their faces, their children, their traveling songs, all these little details he recalls. This signifies that although the Indian tribe has long past away, in his memory they live on. In the details he recalls, he describes them as if they were moving infront of him that moment, like the "constant drag of the travois poles" and "young boys naked on wild horses jaunty as circus riders." However, this also implies that he holds the power to actually kill them or not, by not passing their memory on. The conditions are individual against nature; people against the natural process of dying. The main character in this passage has accepted nature, showing that he is not opposing nature but going along with it, and at the end he proudly stands there "like a man come to the end of something," because it usually takes people a long time to come to terms with the fact that to be alive means they could die as well.