The jail scenes bring up the terrors of cruelty and the dark side of humans and can be compared to similar incarcerations in other great works of literature. Dostoevsky wrote about his own imprisonment in a classic memoir. Camus writes tellingly of jail in The Stranger, as does Sartre in "The Wall." James Jones' From Here to Eternity has a famous "in the brig" section, which details how to survive extreme incarceration. Native Son by Richard Wright is the famous novel of a young African American man caught and imprisoned.
Last, and most important, is the nature theme and the relationship between human beings and the earth. The horses play a central role in defining what McCarthy is saying about human existence. The horses may be eternal, just as Yeats' swans in "The Wild Swans at Coole," which return every year. Human life, especially human achievement, is transitory, ever changing. Nature survives and continues. Striving human beings, in contrast to Native Americans, for example, who accept the natural pattern of existence, are left to struggle, always hoping, but often left with only a sense of loss. Thus, the struggle, the adventure, the process is the only meaning for humans, because the successes, the material acquisitions are not permanent. John Grady's attempts to get a life on a ranch or hacienda are doomed. But his relationship to horses, representing the earth and nature, is fulfilled. We last see him riding his horse, part of the landscape.
Influences on McCarthy's work. The boys' journey is filled with camping scenes reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway's early Nick Adams tales, in which the joy of sleeping under the stars and drinking coffee around the campfire brings peace of mind and renewal. Other authors also influence McCarthy's work. In particular, scholars have noted the great influence of William Faulkner in McCarthy's work. His first novel, The Orchard Keeper, won the Faulkner prize for best first novel, and for his fourth novel, Suttree, McCarthy was critically acclaimed as the first novelist since World War II who could merit comparison to Faulkner.
