Cities of the Plain

“I love this life. You love this life, son? I love this life. You do love this life dont you? Cause by god I love it. Just love it.”

[Note: McCarthy leaves apostrophes out of negative contractions.]

Billy says this to affirm his love and receive validation from his friend. Their shared life as cowboys bonds them together and defines their identity. Despite the changing ways of the world, Billy and John Grady love their lifestyles. They are natural cowboys who cannot imagine living in any other way. Billy repeats his love for this way of life as an act of defiance and to receive validation from his friend. Billy loves something that is fading away; he repeats his love to John Grady to preserve the idea of his way of life for as long as possible. Both men need one another, not only for friendship but for support in coping with the rapid encroachment of modernity.

“It dont help none though, does it?”

The cowboys who work on the plain know the limitations of their situation. Thinking or reflecting on their predicament does not help them. Beyond the dead owl and the shattered windshield, the world is changing so that everything they know about life will be as lost and helpless as the dead bird. Thinking about their situation may be a key theme of the book, but it does not help the cowboys deal with the practical reality of their lives.

“It bothers the horses.”

John Grady does not use the barn light because it bothers the horses. Instead, he walks through the dark, much to the bemusement of the other men. He is more concerned about the horses, who have no recourse to change or affect the electric light, than the humans who invented, installed, and used the light. John Grady’s refusal to allow himself the creature comforts of modern life demonstrates his personality: He would rather make his life more difficult than bother the horses that he loves so much.

“I think he can understand what you mean.”

John Grady’s unique view of the world equivocates humans and horses. To him, the horses can infer as much as any human. Like many cowboys, he is laconic and far from a conversationalist, but he can read sentiment and implication. He reads people’s body language and tone of voice and believes that horses can do the same. However, whereas humans have agency and the capacity to be immoral, horses possess an innocence that humans cannot match.

“A cockroach that had been moving along the counter behind the bottles ascended to the glass where it encountered itself and froze.”

Even in the lavish surroundings of the White Lake brothel, the cockroaches are still a fact of life. In the scene’s context, the cockroach becomes a metaphor for John Grady’s presence in the brothel. Like the cockroach, he embodies poverty, which is out of place in the comparatively luxurious surroundings. Like the cockroach, John Grady looks up into the mirror and is surprised to see himself in such an environment. The appearance of the insect is a reminder of the extent to which John Grady is out of his depth.

“I think you wind up just tryin to minimize the pain.”

The practical reality of life on the tough, harrowing plain is that existence is essentially a joyless venture. Rather than pursuing happiness, men like Billy are only attempting to lessen their pain. Billy has traveled far and wide. He has lost very important people, such as his brother, and now he has arrived at a point in his life where he no longer seeks to attain happiness. Instead, he tries to manage his sense of discontent. His life is couched in negative terms rather than positive because that is all he has come to know.

“He just said you manifested all the symptoms.”

Billy talks about love as though it were a sickness. To him, a man in love is not necessarily happy. Instead, he is in possession of the “symptoms” (59) of love. Like other sicknesses, love has the power to kill. John Grady (and others) will eventually be overcome by their love, and they will die as a result. Meanwhile, the loveless Billy will endure until old age.

“In his time the country had gone from the oil lamp and the horse and buggy to jet planes and the atomic bomb but that wasnt what confused him. It was the fact that his daughter was dead that he couldnt get the hang of.”

The unstoppable march of progress leaves some lifestyles behind, including the one preferred by the cowboys who make their work on the plain. Just as the military hopes to purchase the land and turn it into part of the Cold War militaristic endeavors, the encroaching modernity of everything in American society means there is no longer a place for men like Billy, John Grady, or Mac. They are relics of the past that cannot stand firm in the face of technology, such as jet planes and atomic bombs. However, even in the face of this modernity, the loss of a daughter is more profound and disorienting for men like Mr Johnson than facing external changes. Tragedy and grief remain consistent, even if the rest of society changes.

“Somethin can live and die but that kind of thing that they were was always there.”

Mr Johnson’s mind may be fading, but he can recognize the elements of humanity that stand tall in the face of the changing world. The cowboys, to him, are a kind of elemental force. They represent a connection to the land and nature that may cease to be profitable but will continue long after the cowboys are gone. Their jobs and lifestyles may vanish, but the core ideology that binds them to the country where they work will always remain.

“Men have in their minds a picture of how the world will be. How they will be in that world.”

The characters in Cities of the Plain are prone to self-mythologizing. They have an idea of how the world will change and how they will operate in that new world. The way they view the changing world and how they are viewed in the changing world means that they operate like living myths and legends. The way of the world that they imagined when they were young has ceased to be, but they endure, continuing to operate as mythologized versions of themselves. They want to continue, and there are people who want them to exist, even if they are no longer functional members of society. The men and the society change, leaving the cowboys as actively self-delusional figures who cling to an existence that no longer exists. 

“There’s always one that dont want to go home.”

The hunting dogs function as a metaphor for the community in which John Grady lives. Like the singular dog who does not want to come home, each community has a man like John Grady who exists on the periphery and does not truly belong. While John Grady is bound to the land and the lifestyle of the plain, he is not bound to the community itself. He will become the dog, lingering around the group’s periphery, searching for something else until he becomes completely separated and lost.

“So that the visible depth in them was lost or shrouded. So that they hid the world within.”

Eduardo has complete physical control over Magdalena. Through violence and coercion, he can make her do whatever he wants. But for all of his control of her physical form, he cannot penetrate her mind. He loves Magdalena, but he can never make her love him like she loves John Grady. The world behind her eyes is impenetrable to him, leaving him envious of how John Grady can be with Magdalena in a way that he cannot. Magdalena has agency in this moment in that she can deny Eduardo access to her inner self. This denial is an affront to the man who not only loves her but who appreciates the power he has over her.

“Tales of the old west, he said.”

The “tales of the old west” (127) contain important stories for the cowboys of the plain, but the men who share these stories are aware that their time has passed. These stories are shared so that the men can learn from one another and gather information about surviving in harsh conditions. However, these tales are shared as legends. They are specifically referred to as the “old west” (127) rather than the contemporary west. The cowboys are aware that their lifestyle is fading from relevancy, so they fall back on self-mythologizing because this is all they have left. 

“Aging dancers moved onto the floor.”

The dancers take to the floor as John Grady and the old piano player watch; the dancers are a metaphor for the lives of men like John Grady, who is reduced to observing at the fringes of society and watching other people growing old without enjoying life in quite the same way. The dancers repeat their rehearsed, practice patterns in a feigned expression of emotion and enjoyment. In the meantime, John Grady watches from the edges and tries to understand life as it is lived by everyone else. The distinction between the dancers and the watchers is a distinction that will never be resolved for him.

“A man is always right to pursue the thing he loves.”

John Grady is set on an inevitable path, trying to be with Magdalena because he loves her and sees no other option. The blind piano player validates John Grady’s behavior, suggesting that the pursuit of love is always justified even if—as seems inevitable—it will end tragically. The old man’s words foreshadow the coming tragedy that will be suffered by John Grady, Magdalena, and even Eduardo. All those who pursue love are right to do so, but their being right does not mean that they will achieve what they want. All they can do is pursue love; there is no other option.

“All his early dreams were the same. Something was afraid and he had come to comfort it.”

John Grady’s dreams are infected with the same urgent desire to help the helpless that defines his waking life. He falls in love with a tragically doomed figure like Magdalena. He cares for the wildest and most abused horses. He is always searching for anything that is afraid and that he can comfort. The act of caring—whether about puppies, horses, or women—is the action that defines John Grady’s character. Without the ability to care for someone or something, he has no idea who he is.a

“He spoke in reasoned tones the words of a reasonable man. The more reasonably he spoke the colder the wind in the hollow of her heart.”

Eduardo speaks to Magdalena in fiercely reasonable terms. His tone of voice and his position of power remind her who is in charge and that she would be foolish to challenge him. Eduardo desperately wants to believe that he is a reasonable man. Like the other characters, he is engaged in self-mythologizing. He badly needs to believe that he is a reasonable man rather than a violent pimp because the truth would wound his ego. For Magdalena, his attempts to present himself as reasonable are chilling. Her cold, worrying experiences with the reasonable Eduardo contrast with her warm, satisfying experiences with the mysterious and elusive John Grady.

“I just wonder if you even know what an outlaw you are.”

John Grady is an outsider who does not realize how much of an outsider he has become. Billy, in a moment of searing clarity, tells John Grady that he is an “outlaw” (150). However, he recognizes that John Grady does not view himself as such. John Grady is outside of the mythologizing and legend-making of the other cowboys. He simply exists, perpetually on the periphery of a society that does not interest or concern him. John Grady does not actively try to live an outlaw lifestyle, but, in living as he sees fit, he lives further outside society’s reaches than anyone Billy knows. 

“There was no blood for it had all washed away.”

The blood washes away with ease, symbolizing the extent to which the characters struggle to leave an impression on a brutal and uncaring world. Magdalena’s death is an important moment in the narrative, but it does not mean much in society. She is another dead woman whose death is only relevant to those who knew her. History, social forces, and time will move on without her, and she will leave no legacy. The quick washing away of her blood symbolizes the lack of a legacy that the dead leave on the world and the struggle to make an impression.

“I wish I could ride, he said. I wish I could.”

Riding and caring for horses are all that John Grady truly understands. If he could choose, he would spend his life entirely with his horses and not bother himself with the difficulties of human interaction. For him, society is a mystery best left to other people. However, in a changing, modernizing world, his way of life is no longer tenable. John Grady would rather ride for the rest of his life, but the rest of the world is forcing him to dismount.

“No one knows this country.”

To Eduardo, understanding Mexico is an act of private defiance in the face of American imposition. He resents the Americans who cross the border and claim to understand his country, while all they actually understand is the money they spend and the women and alcohol they purchase with their money. He resents the patronizing attitude of the Americans, and this resentment fuels his loathing of men like Billy and John Grady. Eduardo claims to know Mexico in a way that they never will; to him, Mexico is a state of moral being that exists in opposition to American arrogance and imposition. To Eduardo, the more Americans claim to understand Mexico, the more they show that they do not understand his homeland.

“And we will devour you, my friend. You and all your pale empire.”

Eduardo speaks to John Grady during their fight and positions himself as the embodiment of Mexico, using his streetwise understanding of the world to take down an arrogant outsider. Eduardo views John Grady as a colonial, imperial force who enters Mexico from the north and tries to take resources from the country, such as the women Eduardo uses to make a living. This perspective allows Eduardo to cast himself as the hero, creating his own mythology in which he is fighting against the “pale empire” (172) from the north and defending his country’s innocence against the destructive, arrogant Americans. However, like every act of self-mythologizing, his perspective is doomed to fail.

“Pasture gates stood open and sand drifted in the roads and after a few years it was rare to see stock of any kind and he rode on.”

Billy is the survivor of the ranch, but he cannot survive the ravages of time. While John Grady and Billy’s brother were killed before their way of life could be lost entirely, Billy is left to wander the plain, which is now free of the cattle that once gave him a reason to exist. The gates are open, and the fields are filling with sand, slowly eradicating any pretense that the old cowboy lifestyle can be sustained. Despite this changing world, Billy rides on. He has nothing else to do.