Part 1

All Pretty Horses

“There was an old horse skull in the brush, and he squatted and picked it up and turned it in his hands. Frail and brittle. Bleached paper white. He squatted in the long light holding it; the comic book teeth lose in their sockets. The joints in the cranium like a ragged welding of the bone plates. The muted run of sand in the brainbox when he turned it.” From All Pretty Horses.

Based on the above except the book All Pretty Horses, the author’s writing style is minimalist, where the authors use a language that just describes the event, and gives no more details, as demonstrated by the phrase ‘frail and brittle.' Evidently, the author skips to describing certain information or events, leaving the reader to infer on his or her own. What comes out of the passage is a story set up in a cold, vacant feeling, as demonstrated by the phrase the muted run of sand in the brainbox her he turned it. Although the novel is a love story, that phrase does not create the enthusiasm to infer anything about love. Instead, the tone is one of fear and worry of what might just go on after this actual part. The title All Pretty Horses is itself symbolic, a style used to develop the rest of the passage. First, even though the novel is talking about horses, it is only imagery. In this passage, the horse skull is an illustrative of completely different things, following from the plot development. The narrator talks less about anything else there than what is going, which is demonstrative of his point of view. He just looks like someone sited somewhere, disinterested in anything else other than reporting, and noting down what is happening to others. Lastly, there is the use of similes, where the author likens the joints of a cranium to a welding of the bone plates.

Part 2

Both the novels all pretty horses and Benito Cereno central theme is the encounter of what can be termed as the past and the new era. In all pretty things, the story is one of a character that wants to leave the frustrations behind and set off on an adventure. The All Pretty Horses is a tale of love, loss, and friendship, where the character sets off an adventure to find a new future, different from their past. The characters struggle with their adventures, meeting what they did not expect along the way. The author then comes up to tell us about the loss of innocence, violence and several other things they went through against their expectations. The climax is when the author uses horses to symbolize the character’s strong character in handling the multiple challenges they encounter as they look for a new future.

The Benito Cereno is no different, where the author narrates about moving from an old world to a new world. Amasa Delano, who is a captain in the novel acts as a representative of the young, noble ideals and beliefs that need to move America behind, and make it more different than the old world, which is assumed to be Europe. Some of the ideals America beliefs in include optimism, compassion, nobleness among others, Delano somehow believes that should guide their actions. Contrasting, another character Don Benito is seen to represent the old ideas. The author goes ahead to demonstrating how the antagonism view what others are seeing as American dream dismissing it entirely. The novel is set up when issues like slavery, civil and other evils were bedeviling America, and the Captain was representing a country without such sins. Interestingly, Cereno begins his journey as a master, with slaves as cargo. At some point, he is unaware of who he is carrying, and when he runs, the salves as turned to masters. The slaves end up making the masters captives of the ship, fate that Delano succumbs to.

Both novels talk about moving from the past to the future.  Each group is going through struggles in the hope of better things ahead. However, in all pretty horses, the author does not reveal his identity, he only gives a few clues that would point to his personality. This is the opposite of what happens in the Benito Cereno, where the author is part of the characters behind the story. Another difference in the development of the two novels is the use of imagery. All Pretty Horse is a story that starts as if it is talking about horses, but that is not the case. At every point the author talks about horses, signifying the resilience of the animals. It later turns out he was using them to illustrate the strength of the main characters in the story. The character goes through struggles, which according’s to the author’s view, only someone with the strength of a horse can go though. In Benito Cereno, the language is just direct, talking about the main characters, the ships and all other things that existed, without the use of imagery to avoid direct mentioning of anything used in the story.