“The ancient road was shaped before him in the rose and canted light like a dream of the past where the painted horses and the riders of that lost nation came down out of the north. . .When the wind was wild in the north you could hear them, the horses and the horses’ hooves that were shod in rawhide” (McCarthy, 5). This vivid description suggests the encompassing theme of the horse in Cormac McCarthy’s All …showed first 75 words of 1344 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1344 total…underlying backdrop to John Grady's odyssey. The horse was an important means for the advancement of his dreams. It the figure of romance and intense passion and of the deepest emotions of the human heart. Above all, the horse and his rider will be forever moving on. Like the metaphor of a desert shadow, they will be ever changing and growing until they have "passed and paled into the darkening land, the world to come" (302).